HYLO OPEN 2024 – Much superior, Christo Popov won the fratricidal duel against Toma Junior Popov, and won his second title on the BWF circuit in Germany.
Only two French people had already won the HYLO Open, the Super 300 tournament on the BWF circuit: Pi Hongyan in 2002 and… Toma Junior Popov in 2020. Four years later, the eldest sibling was back in the final, but this time against a familiar opponent: his younger brother, Christo Popov. More than two years after their only confrontation on the world circuit (won by Toma Junior in the semi-finals of the Orléans Masters), the two brothers found themselves with a title in their sights.
Christo intouchable
Christo was clearly the more active of the two at the start of the meeting. Aggressive in attack, he created a first gap, then a second, forcing his elder brother to chase the score and take the lead halfway through (11-7). Toma Junior seemed overwhelmed, finding no rhythm, and above all cruelly lacking solutions in attack. The points went by, the first round looked like a real correction, and logically, Christo pocketed it to get closer to the title.
We then hoped for a rebound of Toma Junior to see a real match. Led 6-2he seemed to finally turn on the machine, came back to a point, did the elastic but undoubtedly played better. Christo however took the lead (11-9) but clearly, nothing was decided. Except that it was already the swan song of the eldest, incapable of standing up to a Christo Popov conqueror, who point after point, rolled out his badminton and buried his brother’s chances. Victory 21-13, 21-10second title, second Super 300 after the German Open at the start of the season: French badminton never stops producing champions!
