In the fantastic evening ambience of the packed center court, the Mexican duo delivered yet another three-set spectacle with the help of Paraguay’s Mayra Perez & Valentina Schmeda, who took the first set. However, Cruz & Torres mounted a spirited comeback to celebrate their second tie-breaker win of the day, 2-1 (19-21, 21-19, 15-11).
Meanwhile, Czechia’s Katerina Pavelkova & Anna Pavelkova managed to beat the same two opponents in straight sets in the other two Pool A matches of the day, so on Friday, a direct duel between the Mexicans and the Czechs, both already qualified for the elimination phase, will decide the pool winners, who will jump directly into the eighthfinals, while the Germans and the Paraguayans will fight for survival in the tournament and a spot in the sixteenthfinals.
Actually, in each of the other pools except for one, the situation is the same – with two undefeated and two winless teams after Thursday matches.
The one exception was Pool D, where Hungarian qualifiers Chiara Honti-Majoros & Stefania Kun continued their winning run into the main draw, starting off with two victories. In their pool opener, they mounted a hard-fought comeback from a set down against Thailand’s Suchipha Rittila & Samitta Simarongnam to celebrate a 2-1 (18-21, 21-15, 19-17) win. They followed up with a 2-0 (21-11, 21-11) sweep of their second match against Costa Rica’s Aliza Aguilar & Laura Molina. With this, the Hungarians secured their advancement to the knockout stages, but have yet to secure the first place in the final pool standings, which would propel them straight into the second elimination round. The other candidates for that direct ticket to the eighthfinals are Suchipha & Samitta and Aguilar & Molina, who won their matches against Venezuela’s Aidana Ramirez & Valeria Figueredo and will meet each other in search for a second victory.
