First day in a new venue so everyone was a little nervous. Fortunately everything went as hoped. A lot of new players this year so many matches to watch. We had eight walkovers and three matches that didn’t take place. Not too many surprises in this qualification so the focus in this article is on the Belgian players. Unfortunately after a few first round wins only Jelske Snoeck made it to the main draw in women’s singles after a walkover and an easy win against Moroccan Raja Rochdy-Abbas.
Jelske has a tough first round tomorrow against fourth seeded Karin Schnaase from Germany. Last match of the day was the men’s doubles between Welshmen Daniel Van Hooijdonk/Jamie Van Hooijdonk and Belgian youngsters Jitse Van Hemelrijck/Klaas Maes. At last there was some atmosphere in the hall. Nerves were a little too high in the first set for our fellow-countrymen so they lost with 21-14. After a good coaching things went the right way and the second set was ours with 21-17. The third set was a nervous wrecking one and to our disappointment Klaas and Jitse lost with 22-20. Anyway, the Belgian team gained a lot of experience. Tomorrow is the start of the main draw with a lot of interesting matches.
