Nina Skerbinz and Karoline Mischek-Colucci have won women’s doubles bronze at the WTT Feeder in Linz after the Austrian wildcard pair beat India’s fifth-seeded Taneesha Kotecha and Sayali Wani in the quarter-finals before losing their semi-final to Poland’s Anna Brzyska and Zuzanna Wielgos.
Skerbinz, 16, and Mischek-Colucci defeated Kotecha and Wani 3-1, winning the opening two games before the Indian partnership responded in the third. The Austrians closed out the match in the fourth game to reach the last four at the Liva Sportpark Lissfeld.
The quarter-final scoreline was 11-8, 12-10, 11-13, 11-7. It gave the wildcard pair a four-game win against opponents who entered the match as the fifth seeds, while also ensuring that Skerbinz and Mischek-Colucci would contest a medal-deciding semi-final in their home event.
The result carried added weight because Kotecha and Wani had previously beaten the tournament’s top-seeded women’s doubles pair. Austria’s win therefore removed a seeded team which had already shown it could challenge the leading partnership in the draw.
Brzyska and Wielgos, the third seeds, then beat Skerbinz and Mischek-Colucci 3-0 in the semi-final. The Polish pair won 11-6, 12-10 and 11-9, according to the Austrian Table Tennis Association’s published results. Although the Austrians were beaten in straight games, the scores in the final two games indicated that they stayed close to their opponents after the first game had gone clearly Poland’s way.
With the semi-final defeat, the Austrian pair finished with bronze. Their run had begun with a 3-0 win over fellow wildcards Vanessa Tang and Sophia Pichler in the last 16.
A home medal after two seeded-pair tests
The doubles campaign gave Skerbinz and Mischek-Colucci three matches in Linz and included encounters with the fifth and third seeds. Their quarter-final against Kotecha and Wani was particularly significant in the context of the draw: the Indian pair had removed the top seeds in a five-game match, but could not repeat that result against the home wildcard partnership.
Skerbinz and Mischek-Colucci took the quarter-final 11-8, 12-10, 11-13 and 11-7, with the third game going to the Indians. The semi-final was a tougher outcome, but the bronze represents the pair’s final standing in the event.
The opening last-16 victory over Tang and Pichler was completed without the Austrian pair losing a game, by scores of 11-9, 11-2 and 11-6. The subsequent matches against the fifth and third seeds meant their route to bronze included two of the seeded combinations in the women’s doubles draw.
The WTT Feeder is being held at Linz’s Liva Sportpark Lissfeld. Its doubles and singles finals are scheduled for 27 September, while Skerbinz and Mischek-Colucci’s women’s doubles competition is now complete.
Skerbinz reaches singles last 16
Skerbinz also made the women’s singles last 16. She began her singles run by beating Croatia’s sixth seed Lea Rakovac 3-1, recovering after losing the third game to take the contest in four.
Her tournament ended in the next round against Wani, one half of the Indian doubles pair beaten by Austria in the quarter-finals. Wani won 3-1 after Skerbinz levelled the match following the opening game. Wani won 3-1, with the third and fourth games both finishing 11-9.
Mischek-Colucci also competed in the women’s singles but was beaten 3-2 by Slovenia’s Sara Tokic in the last 32. She recovered from losing the first two games to level the match, before Tokic won the deciding fifth game.
Elsewhere among the Austrian entries, Maciej Kolodziejczyk reached the men’s singles last 16 after a 3-1 victory over Slovakia’s Mykhailo Lovha. He then lost 3-0 to Romania’s Andrei Istrate. The doubles bronze was the confirmed medal won by Skerbinz and Mischek-Colucci in the reported results.