Yonex Dutch Junior International has taken off!, 28-02-2019
You can prepare yourself for a lot (and we did!), but sometimes circumstances and technology have a mind of their own. Our brand new venue still has little secrets and surprises in store for us, but we are getting to know each other better and better, and we like it. It took us a while to get the live scoring going on day one, but now that it's up and running, we expect no big problems for the rest of the tournament.
None of the IT-challenges interfered with the top level play on court. Even though none of the seeded players or pairs came into action today, we saw a lot of great matches and some dark horses who can easily shock the seeded players in the days to come. Perhaps the most memorable of day 1 was also the longest. In a women’s (or should we say ‘girls’) singles match, it took Riko Gunji from Japan 63 minutes to see off China’s Dai Wang, 21-18 19-21 21-16. We predict that we will see a lot more from these two talents, and Riko can go a long way in this years’ tournament.
From the Dutch perspective, we saw a lot of promising performances, and also good wins for two men’s doubles and for Novi Wieland in de women’s singles. Timo Stoffelen and Robin Mesman also won their first round matches in the men’s singles event, so we will be seeing them in action again.
What is in store for today? Second round singles for both men and women, and second round mixed doubles. All the seeded players are making their appearance today, so please come to the DEGIRO-hal and watch the stars of tomorrow battling it out in Haarlem. Free of charge.
If you want to follow the matches on courts 2, 3 and 4, please watch one of our livestreams: