I Reached The Final In A Starpacked Tournament!

Hey guys, welcome to today's video where I will be talking about the tournament I played recently, WTT Tunis. The tournament was a huge success for me. I made it all the way to the final where I lost against Felix Lebrun, but I still managed to play a lot of good matches. It was a confirmation to myself that I'm back in shape after my injury in the beginning of this year. I'll also talk a little bit about my thought process and my tactics against each individual opponent. So yeah, I hope you enjoy it and let's go! So in the first round I played against Romania's Ovidiu Ionescu, who is a former silver medalist at the European Championships. He is a great player, he has a very good serve, a solid game that revolves around using his forehand as much as possible. So of course my mindset going into the match was trying to force him to use his backhand as much as possible and try to counter attack after his service because it's very difficult to push short on them. So yeah, push long in the backhand middle area and then take it from there trying to turn the offensive to my own game. But in the end I stayed with my tactic. I played a decent match and yeah, I took it in the end 3-1, 11-6 in the last game and I was through to the second round. The second round was against Iran's Navid Shams, who is a very unorthodox player. His game revolves around a very strong serve, very difficult to read the spin and he has a very good backhand touch but his forehand is a little bit weak. So going into the match my tactic was actually very simple. When he was serving, put the ball on the table and take him in the rallies because I knew I was better than him there but the match was more really like a third ball attack session. It was basically I push long, he starts the game, I relook, he couldn't catch the ball and after I served many times it was the same that I made a spin and I just won the point by playing one or two shots on the table. But still a very difficult match. First two sets were 12-10, 11-9 but in the end I did win the match 3-0. The last set I played a little bit better than the other two and wow, that serve, let me just tell you, that serve is amazing. That's also what I'm talking to him about. The quarterfinal was against Matthias Falck, a player I'm sure all of you know. He is a former silver medalist at the world singles championships in Hungary. I knew this match was going to be very tough but the first set was basically unplayable. I played, actually I was down 8-1 in the first game and I felt like I had played five points where I was doing the right things but he was just much better. So yeah, after losing the first set 11-2 without any chance I went to the bench and my thoughts between the set was, I'm gonna keep playing like this. I didn't play a bad game. If he continues to play like this I will lose 3-0 but it's the best I can do. And yeah, then after the first game I actually played a little bit better and I played a little bit more clever and then his level fell a little bit, mine improved and directly it was a totally different match. Of course against short pimples you want to try and re-loop as much as possible, force him to start with the pimples because you cannot make the same quality from half long or long downspin with this rubber. So yeah, that was my tactic and in the end it was a very long, a very tough match but I won it and I was very proud after because it was very difficult not only mentally but also game-wise. In the semi-final I played against another Swedish player, I'm sure you also all know him, Christian Karlsson. He's been in the top of this sport for the last 10 years and been a top player for as long as I can remember and he's not only one of my best friends from table tennis, he's also my former teammate and my teammate next year and he came with a hip injury that happened in the first round against Noshat and he somehow managed to make it all the way to the semi-final despite not being able to move like he normally would. And of course it's always weird playing against your friends but playing against a friend who's at the same time injured and you can see that he's in pain when he's playing the shots that he normally goes for, it's unpleasant. So it was very hard mentally to stay 100% active because of the weird situation so my only mental goal for this match was just be professional, try to win the match, try to win every single point. What happens happens and I managed to do that and in the end I won 3-1 very close. I almost choked but I'm very happy I didn't because this means that I was in the final. And a funny thing here before I come to the final against Felix, before the tournament Felix texted me on Instagram that we would see each other on Sunday which of course means the final and I told him that he's going to the final and I would be happy with the top 8. And yeah a few minutes after he won the semi-final this message came with a kissing emoji replying to his own answer that he was correct we did indeed see each other on that Sunday in the Tunis final and yeah eventually he was right. So yeah congratulations Felix, good prediction. And in the final of course against Felix Lebrun, double bronze medalist at last year's Olympics and one of the biggest players in the world right now. Of course tactically against Felix it's you have to try and avoid his backhand but at the same time you also have to try and avoid his forehand so I tried to play a lot to the middle and actually in this match I played very well. I played my tactic the way I wanted to play it. I received, I served in a way that I look back on and I don't really have any regrets. And of course he is a better player than me I'm fully aware but 4-0 was not how this match should have gone in my opinion. I felt like in the first sets I got very unlucky with a lot of unlucky errors that missed by very little or him getting some lucky net or edges on his racket but that's just a part of sport and I'm hoping next time it will be my favor that these come. In the end he was too strong for me and I lost 0-4 but I was very proud with the tournament and actually also with the final so no regrets. Big congratulations to Felix he played an awesome tournament he was not even close to losing any match and yeah he was the deserved winner and I hope I can take the title next time I'm in a contender final. So yeah guys I hope you enjoyed it. It was a very good tournament for me and I would like to thank all of you again for all the support you showed me not only during the tournament but also after I lost the final I received so many messages from you guys that were really nice in a time of me being disappointed losing a final. So thanks so much for that I appreciate it more than you know and see you next time!