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Last weekend, the Moldovan Championship SEMSEO cup in sports kicker ended in the capital. In the singles tournament, the best 16 athletes were divided into 4 equal groups. According to the tournament regulations, they played two games in their quartets, after which the athletes who took 1st and 2nd place in their quartets advanced to the quarterfinals, where they continued to fight for the trophy and medals in the knockout matches.
It should be noted that out of 16 participants in the singles, there were two representatives of the fair sex who were not afraid to challenge the men, and they did it quite successfully. Looking ahead, we note that one of the participants managed to get out of her group, and the second girl, in fact, took 2nd place! According to the results of the group stage, the winners of their groups were Ilya Dragan, Evgeny Zinkovsky, Kirill Semenov and Angela Rajetsky, who turned out to be the only athlete in the entire group stage who won 6 victories in 6 matches, achieving a 100% result.
The first unexpected result happened in the quarterfinals. The winner of Group A, Ilya Dragan, lost to Maxim Cheban, who advanced from second place in Group B, in a tense match of four sets – 1:3 (2:7, 7:6, 6:7, 3:7). Ekaterina Nesterenko, who came out from the second place in the A quartet, almost caused a sensation, putting up a real fight in the quarterfinals against the two-time champion in doubles and one of the best players in Moldova, Evgeni Zinkovskiy. Having lost the first set 3:7, Ekaterina was able to demonstrate a great game and won the next two games with the same score – (7:6, 7:6), stopping one step away from reaching the semifinals. But at the decisive moment, her opponent managed to pull himself together and achieved a strong-willed victory, winning the fourth, and then the decisive fifth set – 7:2, 7:3. In the other two quarterfinal pairs, Angela Rajetski continued her winning streak, winning a confident 3:0 victory over Igor Gratie (7:6, 7:2, 7:1), and Valery Bodarev broke the resistance of Kirill Semenov in a tough match – 3:1 (7:6, 6:7, 7:6, 7:3).
In the semifinals, the favorites confirmed their class. Evgeny Zinkovsky beat Maksim Cheban, not allowing him to win a single set – 3:0 (7:4, 7:5, 7:1), and Angela Rajetski defeated Valery Bodarev with a score of 3:1 (7:5, 7:5, 6:7, 7:4). Thus, in the match for the bronze medals, Valery Bodarev and Maksim Cheban had to sort things out, and in the final, Evgeny Zinkovsky and Angela Raetski met.
Unfortunately, the spectators who expected a tough fight in the match for third place never saw it. Valery Bodarev, upset by his defeat in the semifinals and failure to reach the final, was unable to get into the mood for the fight for bronze. But Maksim Cheban, on the contrary, really wanted to get into the prize-winners and gave one of his best matches of the tournament at the final moment, and, not allowing his opponent to win a single set, achieved a confident success – 3:0 (7:5, 7:2, 7:3).
The match for the gold medals turned out to be much more intense in terms of intrigue. The first set went to Angela Raetski – 7:6. In the second set, with the score 5:5, Evgeniy Zinkovsky managed to score two unanswered goals and tied the score in sets – 1:1, after which he won the third set – (7:2). The fourth set in this match turned out to be the last one and was similar in scenario to the second. The opponents reached the score 5:5, after which, having made two accurate strikes, Evgeniy secured the final victory in his favor – 3:1 in sets (6:7, 7:5, 7:2, 7:5).
