MADRID, 7 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish couple formed by Iker Sastre and Miguel Ángel Toledo will fight this Tuesday to be world champions of the MD4 class, for athletes in wheelchairs, of the Paralympic Table Tennis World Championships that are taking place in Granada, while Álvaro Valera and Jordi Morales had to settle for bronze in the MD14 class after losing in the semifinals.
Spain had already secured its first two medals at the Palacio de los Deportes in the Nasrid capital with qualification for the penultimate round of these two duos, but only one of them was able to overcome the barrier of the semifinals.
Sastre and Toledo got into the final of the SD4 class by beating the Poles Rafal Czuper and Tomasz Jakimczuk 3-1 and with a comeback since they gave up the first game clearly by 6-11, to then take the next three by 11-7, 11-8 and 11-9. Now, the South Koreans Park Jin Cheol and Cha Son Yong will be measured to win a historic gold.
For their part, Álvaro Valera and Jordi Morales were unable to accompany their compatriots in the search for what would have been their fourth World Cup final as a couple after the successes of 2010 and 2014 and the silver in 2006.
But the man from Madrid and the Catalan, bronze in the last Paralympic Games, fell to the British Paul Karabardak and Billy Shilton 3-1 (11-8, 11-7, 9-11 and 10-12), despite having the ball to have forced the fifth and final game and repeated success compared to last year.
In addition, the Spanish delegation had options to have secured another medal, in this case in the mixed doubles modality of the XD17 class with the veteran José Manuel Ruiz and the promising Pilar González, but the couple could not reach the semifinals after losing to the Danes Peter Rosenmeier and Thea Nielsen (11-3, 11-7 and 11-5).
