Anna Hursey had to settle for silver at the World Youth Championships when she and Romanian partner Iulian Chirita were defeated by Li Hechen and Qin Yuxuan of China in the Under-19 Mixed Doubles final.
However, the Wales and Great Britain star will compete in tomorrow’s girls’ doubles final alongside Germany’s Mia Griesel, safely reaching the singles quarter-finals on a dramatic day in Cluj Napoca, Romania.
The Europeans fell two games behind against Chinese opponents – Wen Ruibo & Zong Geman – in the first round of the Mixed, but that was disregarded this time as they won the first three points of the final – played between two unseeded pairs – and stayed ahead, winning the first game 11-6.
In the second, the lead changed hands, but the Chinese pair took a 5-5 lead and brought home three game points. After two were saved, the left-handed Li look was relived after putting away a backhand to level the match.
There were signs that the tide was beginning to turn and that proved to be the case in the third, with the Chinese duo winning 11-5, having never trailed, and taking the lead by four points on the spin.
Li’s blistering backhand reception to make it 3-1 in the fourth led to the European timeout, but this was immediately followed by Li showing his forehand skills with another excellent winner. The score increased to 7-1, with the European counter-attacks missing by millimeters as they tried to get back into it.
From 8-2 down, Chirita & Hursey came back to 8-5, as Li missed a few backhands, causing the Chinese coach to call his timeout.
If some nerves had crept in, it was now time for Chirita & Hursey to capitalize, and they won the next two points after the timeout. Li capitalized on another point with a dead net, but in the blink of an eye it was 9-9 thanks to two great Hursey receptions, one that couldn’t be returned and one that set up a Chirita charge.
Unfortunately, this was not to be as Li put away two more backhand receptions to end the match and clinch the title.
Hursey will have another chance to go for gold in the under-19 girls’ doubles after she and partner Mia Greisel of Germany, with whom she won the European under-21 title earlier this year, safely reached their semi-final earlier in the day.
Against Hana Goda from Egypt and the Ukrainian Veronika Matiunina, the fifth seed, Hursey & Griesel got the first game on the board with a run of seven out of eight points from 4-4.
The second was a key match in which both pairs had a chance to win – Hursey & Griesel saved three game points at 7-10, but then missed three consecutive chances of their own before taking the fourth – a final score of 15-13.
In the third inning they saved a game point at 11-9 and then missed a match point before their opponents took the opportunity to pull one back.
It was 13-11 in that game and so it was in the fourth as Hursey & Griesel booked their place in the final – saving two game points and seeing another match point slip by before finally crossing the line.
They face Zong Geman and Qin Yuxuan of China on Saturday at 5pm UK time. Follow the match on the WTT YouTube channel.
To start the day, Hursey completed a remarkable hat-trick of singles victories over Ukraine’s Matiunina to advance to the quarter-finals.
Hursey had beaten Matuinina twice in gold medal matches this year, first at the Under-21 European Championships and then in the Under-19 age group at the European Youth Championships.
They met again in the last 16 of the Under-19 Girls’ Singles in Romania, and again the outcome was the same.
Not that the Welsh and Great Britain athlete, the top seed, was having it all the way as she had to come back from a game behind twice before winning in the sixth.
Matuinina pulled away from 7-7 to win the first thanks to winning four of the next five points, but Hursey hit back to take the second game 11-9 on her second game point.
She also had a game point in the third, but Matiunina won three in a row to make it 12-10 and take the lead again.
Hursey lost the first two points of game four but switched gears from there, riding eight straight points to a 3-3 victory to level the match and then taking nine of 10 points from 4-1 down in the fifth on the way to an 11-6 scoreline.
Also in the sixth it was 11-6 and this time the key point was five consecutive points from 3-3.
Hursey’s opponent in Saturday afternoon’s quarterfinals is sixth seed Yeh Yi-Tian of Chinese Taipei.
Results
Mixed doubles under 19 years
Final
Li Hechn & Qin Yuxuan (CHN) bt Iulian Chiriter (ROU) & Anna Hursey (WAL) 3-0 (6-11, 11-9, 11-5, 11-9)
Girls singles under 19 years old
Round of 16
Anna Hursey (WAL) v Veronika Matiunina (UKR) 4-2 (8-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-3, 11-6, 11-6)
Girls’ doubles under 19 years
Semi-finals
Anna Hursey & Mia Griesel (DU) with Hana Goda (EGY) & Veronika Matiunina (UKR) 3-1 (11-5, 15-13, 11-13, 13-11)
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