Spain down home heroines in Sèvres to play British ladies in final act
France’s dreams of qualifying to London 2012 were shattered on Thursday in Sèvres as the home heroines were downed in the semifinals by their guests from Spain that will play Great Britain to advance to the final stage of the Continental Cup scheduled for mid June in Moscow, Russia.
The semifinals lived up to all expectations and were very intense, also emotionally speaking. As they were playing before their friends and fans, France’s ladies did their best to break Spain’s wall with Déborah Giaoui and Mélody Benhamou performing well and prolonging both of their matches to the tie-break. However, they eventually lost first to Alejandra Simon and Cristina Hopf (19-21, 21-14, 13-15) and afterwards also to the best pair of the tournament, Liliana/Baquerizo (17-21, 21-11, 8-15). With Spain’s top duo having opened the series by downing Eva Hamzaoui and Laura Longuet in straight sets (21-15, 21-18), the guests finished it off with a 3:0.
Great Britain needed four matches to cruise to the final as in the morning session Shauna Mullin and Zara Dampney were surprised by Slovakia’s second duo, Natalia Dubovcova and Dominika Nestarcova, but in the afternoon they edged Michalovicova/Cizmarova in straight sets to seal the series at 3:1 after their compatriots Denise Johns and Lucy Boulton had claimed both of their respective matches. “We were a little disappointed with our performance this morning but we are also happy with the result of this afternoon’s matches and to have qualified for the final against Spain” says Denise Johns.
On Saturday Spain and Great Britain will battle to prolong their dream of Olympic glory while the home girls of France will play Slovakia in the classification match 3/4.
