When the world’s best juniors came together in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal,  eight event titles were up for grabs.  The top two seeds in the U19 Boys Singles event were Germany’s Kay Stumper and Romania’s Darius Movileanu.  Both players fell early, Stumper lost to a strong Xiang Peng (China) in the Round of 16, and Movileanu fell to Poland’s Samuel Kulczycki in the Quarterfinals.  In fact, these two players, who upset the top two seeds, each advanced to the Final where Xiang Peng topped Samuel Kulczycki.  *For those following the Germany Bundisliga, you may know that Kulczycki defeated Sweden’s Kristian Karlsson this weekend in league play – clearly Kulczycki is on a path towards a Top 10 European ranking, and clearly Xiang Peng is another in a long line of great, young Chinese players.

USA’s Amy Wang advanced to the Round of 16 in the Girls U19 event and Rachel Sung made the Quarterfinals before losing to the eventual champion Kuai Man of China.  Kuai topped Japan’s Miyuu Kihara 4-3 in the Final.  The U15 Boys title went to Sora Matsushima of Japan.  Miwa Harimoto won the U15 Girls title (Miwa is Tomokazu Harimoto’s little sister).

In Doubles it was Russia’s Grebnev and Sidorenko taking the U19 Boys, China’s Kuai and Wu topping USA’s Rachel and Amy Sung in Girls U19 Doubles, and Japan’s Shinozuka/Kirhara team taking the U19 Mixed Doubles title. A Japan/France team of Matsushima/Lebrun took the U15 Boys Doubles title, a mixed Egypt/Japan team of Harimoto/Goda took the U15 Girls Doubles,  and Harimoto paired with Sora Matsushima in Mixed U15 Doubles to take her third Gold.

In U19 Boys Teams it was China over Russia 3-0 in the Final, China topped the US team 3-0 in the Girls U19 Teams Final, The US made another Final when they were runner up to Russia in the U15 Boys Teams, and it was Japan over Russia 3-0 in the Girls U15 Team event (an event where the US lost to Japan 3-1 in the Semis).