Ivor Ban and Hana Arapović won silver and bronze respectively at the European Youth Top 10, which was played in France over the weekend. Croatian juniors won four bronze medals at the European Championships in Varaždin this year. Now in Tours, in the competition of the ten best European table tennis players, they have completed their collection with two more medals, announced HSTS.
In the end, Ban achieved seven victories and two defeats, as did the winner, Norwegian Haug, the third-placed Pole Kubik, and the fourth-placed Hungarian Andras. On the last day, Ban recorded two wins and a defeat. He was defeated by Haug (4:1), but was better than Slovak Klaiber 4:1, and in the end, beat Belgian Rassenfosse 4:3. As the other matches took place, the defeat in that last match could have pushed him to fifth place, but he managed to come back from 1:3 and crown a great three competition days. Along with Haug, the only defeat in this tournament was against Frenchman Poret (4:1).
Hana had a 3:0 score on the last day. She had a difficult match against the Turkish player Harac, where she returned from 1:3. Against the French player Cok (4:0) and the Italian Laurenti (4:1), she proved herself in two dominant matches with only one lost set. In the end, the round between three players with the same win-loss ratio (Zaharia, Arapović, and Voronina 7-2) closed, and the Croatian representative had 1:1 in that round, which was enough for third place. She lost two matches in the three-day tournament, the first against the silver Romanian Zacharia (4:3), and the second against French player Lutz (4: 2), who also won the Top 10.
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