PARIS, 3 Sep. (by EUROPA PRESS special correspondent Ramón Chamorro) –
Spanish player Alvaro Valera was unable to secure at least a bronze medal after losing on Tuesday in the quarter-finals of class 6 of table tennis at the Paris Paralympic Games to American and current champion Ian Seidenfeld, 3-0 (11-5, 12-10 and 11-9).
The Seville native, who won a historic gold medal in Sydney 2000 when he was a class 8, will therefore not be able to add to his already huge list of achievements, which includes six medals. Since his debut 24 years ago, he had always been on the podium, except in Athens 2004.
Valera did not have many options against Seidenfeld, although the key could surely have been in the second set, which he had in his grasp before losing it to the comeback of the American, who was much superior in the other two, in which he almost always had the initiative.
The Tokyo champion started off much more in tune and took the first set very clearly by 11-5. However, the Spaniard knew how to react and was the great dominator of the second set, where he took an optimal 10-5. But he was unable to take advantage of it and seven consecutive points from his rival forced him to stage an epic comeback that Seidenfeld gave him no chance of in a disputed third set, but which fell to the American.
Now, the hopes of table tennis, which has been contributing to the Spanish medal table since Barcelona’92, reside in Jorge Cardona and Ander Cepas, both from class 9 and who qualified in the morning session for the quarter-finals.
The Aragonese player defeated the Chinese Chaodong Liu 3-1 (11-6, 7-11, 11-8 and 13-11) and will now seek to secure at least the bronze this Wednesday against the French Lucas Didier, number five in the ranking, and the Guipuzcoan also won 3-1 (11-9, 9-11, 11-7 and 11-9) against the Japanese Koyo Ibawuchi and will cross paths with the Ukrainian Ivan Mai.