He had to pass a qualifying round to enter the main draw of the men’s singles: Arnaud Merklé, 47e world, crossed it without problem this Tuesday in Vantaa (Finland) where the Arctic Open, the Super 500 tournament of the World Tour, is taking place until Sunday.
The Red Star from Mulhouse inflicted a severe 21-6, 21-13 on the Indian Sathish Kumar Karunakaran. The 2021 French champion will face in the round of 16, this Wednesday around 10:30 a.m., the Taiwanese Chou Tien Chen, 10eseeded No. 7 and Olympic quarter-finalist in Paris.
In this same HS table to which he had direct access, Alex Lanier (ASPTT Strasbourg), 21ewill challenge, at best around noon, the Dane Andersen Antonsen, 3eseeded 1 and double European champion (2021, 2024), whom he defeated during their only confrontation at the Orléans Masters 2023 (21-12, 5-21, 21-10).
For their return to the international circuit after their second Games at the end of July at home, the 2024 European mixed doubles champions, Thom Gicquel (Mulhouse) and Delphine Delrue (Chambly), who fell to 23e rank, had to fight hard on Tuesday in the sixteenth against the Danes Mads Vestergaard and Christine Busch, 21es (22-20, 21-19), which they had never opposed.
Trailing for a long time in both sets (14-17, 11-15), they were able to reverse the trend to conclude the first on their fourth shuttlecock of the set and the second on the second.
Their round of 16, scheduled for Thursday, promises to be difficult against the Chinese Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping, seeded 1, world number 2 and quarter-finalists at the Paris Olympics, defeated by the future Olympic champions and n°1, their compatriots Zheng Si Wei and Huang Ya Qiong.
