The audience gasped. It was a strange sight to them. Thomas Laybourn and Kamilla Juhl played great in their opening game against Nikolaenko and Sorokina, but then the match just turned completely: The Russians fought their way back into the game and stunned the audience. After being almost K.O.’ed in the first game, they handled the second much better and won it surprisingly.
Nevertheless they had to resign after a brilliant performance and 50 minutes of play by losing 21-15 in the final game. For that reason Laybourn and Juhl were happy with the win:
- It was a tight match in the middle of the third game. But we showed our class. It was a great match to get early in this tournament. We haven’t played them before, but they played very well and Lars Uhre(National Head Coach of Denmark) told us, he never had seen them play any better, says Thomas Laybourn.
And playing at home in Denmark is a special thing to the former World Champions, who really wants to win the Denmark Open:
- We hope so. We do really want to play and do well here on home court in Odense, says Kamilla Juhl.
Also the top seeded Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba from Poland had trouble in their first match. The draw gave them a hard opponent as Russkikh and Hendra Setiawan waited for them. Mateusiak and Zieba needed a game to get ready but after losing 21-9 the Polish woke up and won the following games 21-11 and 21-17.
The fifth seeded Danes Joachim Fischer and Christinna Pedersen managed to keep their opponents from winning a game, but the defending champions worked hard to earn the win. The non-described Croatians Durkinjak and Poznanovic showed great talent and played fast also having an excellent defensive against the very attacking Fischer, who just won with 23-21 and 21-19. They will now meet Hirata and Fujii from Japan. Watch live stream, click here |