compass supported Danilo Faso and Flavien Coton both won the prestigious Europe Youth Top 10 tournament. Danilo won the U15 category by winning all nine of his matches and Flavien won the U19 category by winning all but one of his matches.

The Europe Youth Top 10 is the younger version of the classic Europe Top 12 for seniors, which started in the 1970s. In those days, all participants played eleven five-game matches over two days and needed 21 points to win a match. Since 2015, the younger version, called Europe Youth Top 10, is the most prestigious event in the ETTU calendar for the U15 and U19 categories, after the European Youth Championships.

Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland, was the venue for this year’s event and Danilo Faso, who finished fourth last year, won all nine matches to claim the title. Faso, who was a quarter-finalist in the U15 event at the EYC in Malmö earlier this summer, was not really challenged in any of his matches and never allowed an opponent to get close to him.

“From the beginning, my focus was not on winning the tournament at all,” said Danilo after his victory. “I concentrated on playing as well as I could, one match at a time. I never thought about winning the final, although I knew it was a possibility.”

On the final day of competition on Sunday, Danilo defeated France’s Sandro Cavaille, Turkey’s Görkem Öcal and finally Robert Alexandru Israte of Romania 4:0 – 11:5, 11:9, 11:8, 11:6 – to take the title in style.

“I have been playing well since the beginning of the season and this title gives me even more motivation to keep training and travelling and always give my best to achieve my goals”.

The second compass supported player in the field, Görkem Öcal from Turkey, also had a good tournament. Born in 2011, Görkem was two years younger than some of his competitors and finished fourth, exactly the same place as Danilo last year when he was two years younger. Görkem had five wins and four losses.

compass supported Flavien Coton also made it like Danilo Faso – he won the tournament. After losing 4:2 to Germany’s André Bertelsmeier in the second round, the French talent, born in 2008 and three years younger than the oldest players in the tournament, made things difficult for himself. To have any chance of winning, he had to win all of his remaining seven matches. And he did! After losing to Bertelsmeier (2:4), Flavien won 4:3 against Tiago Abiodun (11:4 in the decider) in round three, and from round five he was very solid – winning all four of his final matches in straight games.

For a long time, Bertelsmeier looked like the winner. He won all his first matches before losing to Abiodun. But since he had beaten Flavien, he had to lose one more match for Flavien to win. This happened in the eighth round against Daniel Berzosa from Spain. When Flavien then won his ninth match, the victory was his.

compass Managing Director Daniel Zwickl watched the tournament live and commented: “We are happy and proud to see Flavien and Danilo win the titles, both of them performed at a good level and mentally handled expectations and different situations well. Congratulations also to Görkem, who fought and played really well, showing his ability and talent. The performances should give the players the confidence to continue to develop and grow, and to perform in the upcoming events in 2024, such as the World Championships at the end of November”.

In the U15 event, reigning European U15 singles champion Hanka Kodetova once again proved her mettle by winning. Lisa Wang and Koharu Itagaki, both from Germany, finished second and third.

Ukraine’s Veronika Matiunina won the U19 title. France’s Clea de Stoppeleire was second and her compatriot Nina Guo Zheng was third.

ETTU Article 1

ETTU Article 2

ETTU Article 3