Cuban Pereira starts well in World Table Tennis Championships

HAVANA, Cuba, May 30 (acn) Cuban Andy Pereira won four of the five preliminary games he played in the first day of the World Table Tennis Championships in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Pereira won in his two outings in the men´s single event, but also won with Idalys Lovet and Livan Martinez in mixed doubles and men´s doubles, in that order.
Individually, he beat 4-3 Saudi Arabia's Abdulaziz Al-Abbad and Peruvian Diego Rodriguez (4-0), and ranks first in Group 60 when he only have to face South African Mohamed Salah, who by the way achieved two consecutive losses.
Martinez and Pereira joined forces to defeat 3-1 Jamaicans Simon Tomlinson-Kane Watson in the men´s double event and will face today Bulgaria´s Teodor Alexandrov-Denislav Kodjabashev.
In the mixed doubles, the duo Pereira-Lovet got two wins over Bulgaria´s Todorov-Yorkova (3-2) and Cameroon´s Sow-Hanffou (3-0), but then they lost 0-3 in the round of 32 to Belarusians Khanin-Trigolos.
Meanwhile, Martinez, who won with Pereira in the men´s doubles, lost his two games in the men´s single event.
The other two Cubans in the contest, Yohan Mora and Lizdainet Rodriguez, won by forfeit in their first outing in the mixed doubles, to then lost 0-3 to Vietnamese Quang Linh Dinh-Hoang My Trang Mai.
Competing in this event, which runs until June 5th, will allow the Cubans to appear in the world ranking and get in better position to the Central American qualifier, or even reach direct tickets as teams, Barbaro Olivia, Cuban head coach, told JIT sports publication.