Pucar and Ban advance at European Table Tennis Championships

At the European Table Tennis Championships held in Ljubljana, Croatian players Tomislav Pucar and Ivor Ban successfully advanced past the first round.

Pucar secured a five-set victory against Turkey’s Abdullah Yigenler with a score of 15-13, 11-8, 11-3, 9-11, and 13-11. He is scheduled to face Portugal’s Joao Geral in the second round. Ivor Ban achieved a dominant 4-0 win over Slovakia’s Lubomir Pistej and will next compete against French player Felix Lebrun.

However, the tournament saw the exit of fellow Croatian representatives Andrej Gaćina and Filip Zeljko. Gaćina was defeated by Sweden’s Elias Ranefur 4-1, while Zeljko lost a closely contested seven-set match to Romania’s Vladislav Ursu, finishing 4-3.