Álvaro Robles and María Xiao sign a great performance in the WTT Star Contender in Doha

The Spanish Álvaro Robles and María Xiao have closed the tour of tournaments in Asia with a great result in the WTT Star Contender in Doha, where they have reached the semifinals of one of the most important competitions of the year, which adds to last week’s quarterfinals in the WTT Contender in the same city.

On this second date, the Spanish duo debuted with an important victory against the Indian couple, number 7 in the world ranking, Gnanasekaran/Batra 3-1. Robles/Xiao started ahead (11-7), withstood the recovery of the Indians (9-11) and managed to get back in front (11-7) to close with a comfortable 11-5 run in the fourth game.

In the quarterfinals, Robles/Xiao won 3-0 over the Hungarian pair Ecseki/Madarasz, ranked 30th in the world, 11-7, 15-13, 11-6. Finally, in the semifinals, the Spanish duo faced the number 3 couple in the world ranking, who began by imposing their game, 1-7 in the partial, but the Spaniards reacted in time to place themselves 10-9, but they did not take advantage of that option, losing the first game 10-12. The second set also fell on the French side (6-11), which did not make the Spanish couple give up, who won the third game 11-9. However, again in the advantage, the Lebesson/Yuan duo claimed the 10-12 victory.

In men’s doubles, Álvaro Robles, together with his partner Ovidiu Ionescu, also reached the semifinals of the competition. The debut of the Spanish-Romanian duo was also against an Indian couple, Thakkar/Achanta, who won 3-1. Subsequently, Robles and Ionescu advanced to the semifinals directly without playing the quarterfinal duel against Puerto Ricans Gonzalez/Afanador. In semifinals, Robles/Ionescu faced the German duo number five in the world, Qiu/Duda, losing 1-3.

In the individual tests, Álvaro Robles from Huelva fell in the first round of the final draw against the Indian Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (39 WR) 3-0 (10-12, 4-11, 4-11). María Xiao and Sofía-Xuan Zhang lost in the second round of qualifying. Xiao lost to Andrea Todorovic 1-3, while Zhang, who had just beaten Singapore’s Jingyi Zhou in the first round, fell to Korea’s Haeun Yang (81 WR) by a tight 2-3.

In women’s doubles, María Xiao, who formed a couple with the Monegasque Xiaoxin Yang, fell short of qualifying for the final drawlosing in the second round of the preliminary phase against Hong Kong’s Soo/Lee ​​by 1-3.