TODAY – Teams Day One

31/07/2015 2015 Eindhoven, News, TODAY

No sooner are the individual champions crowned, we’re ready to start the Girls’ team event. Eighteen Nations are split into four pools, with top seeds Egypt – whose team comprises all four medalists from the individual event – hot favourites to retain the title.

The other pools are headed by USA, England and Hong Kong, and while they would expect to top their groups and progress to favoured positions in the quarter-final draw, there sure to be some surprises along the way.

In today’s action all the seeded teams won, the only scare came as New Zealand were taken to a decider by France. Details below …

Day One Pool Matches – Playing Order: 3-2-1

11.00
Pool C: England 3-0 Belgium, New Zealand 2-1 France
Pool D: Hong Kong 3-0 Netherlands, Malaysia 3-0 Germany

No upsets in the first round of matches, with comfortable opening wins for England, Hong Kong and Malaysia, but New Zealand were taken to the wire by France.

New Zealand led 2-0 in the first match but France’s Laura Paquemar recovered to give France the lead, the second went to five games with Abbie Palmer levelling the match, then Eleanor Epke came from a game down to win the decider.

14.30:
Pool A: Egypt 3-0 Switzerland, Canada 3-0 South Africa
Pool B: USA 3-0 Australia, India 3-0 Finland

The second session also went to seeding with 3-0 wins all round, the only minor scare was when individual champion Nouran Gohar found herself game ball down in the third to Celine Walser.

18.00:
Pool C: England 3-0 France, New Zealand 3-0 Zimbabwe
Pool D: Hong Kong 3-0 Germany, Malaysia 3-0 Guyana

The final session of the day saw Hong Kong and Malaysia record their second wins to set up a Pool D decider tomorrow, as did England and New Zealand in Pool C – all matches finishing 3-0, 3-0, 3-0.

There will be four rounds of pool matches on Saturday, with quarter-final places up for grabs …