General News
ESF European U19 Mixed Team Championship preview: Can anyone stop England?
Mar272024
England will be bidding for a 13th consecutive victory in the ESF European U19 Mixed Team Championship in Bucharest, Romania, starting on Thursday (28 March).
Boasting the newly-crowned U19 Individual title winners Jonah Bryant and Amelie Haworth in their line-up, England are strong favourites to claim a third successive 'triple crown' (boys', girls' and mixed titles) at the Aerosquash Baneasa.
Completing the powerful English squad is former British Junior Open champion Abd-Allah Eissa, three-time English national junior champion Mariam Eissa and German Junior Open champion Yusuf Sheikh.
Lucy Townley, England Squash’s Junior Talent Pathway Manager, said: “We’ve been really impressed with the level of skill and commitment shown by our players across the junior pathway this year. The players in this year’s European squad have made some excellent progress at a number of major tournaments. We're excited to see how the squad gets on as we chase further podium success.”
England open their pool campaign against local rivals Scotland, with Spain, Italy and Finland also making up Group A.
France have been runners-up to England in five of the last nine ESF U19 Mixed Team Championships and they are again expected to be England's nearest rivals for the trophy. European U19 Individual runners-up Lauren Baltayan (pictured below) and Melvil Scianimanico are the stand-out players in their team and Amir Khaled-Jousselin was the recent U17 winner at the French and Belgian Junior Opens.
France begin their campaign by facing the Netherlands - for whom Renske Huntelaar will be a dangerous asset - with Belgium, Sweden and hosts Romania also in Group B.
Third seeds Czech Republic are rising stars of European junior squash. They will want to go at least one better than their third-place finishes of 2017, 2018 and 2019 - but must first get through a tough Group C which features Wales, Poland, Norway and Greece.
Karolina Sramkova will be full of confidence after reaching the semi-finals of the ESF European U19 Individuals as a 9/12 seed this week in Bucharest. She is ranked eighth in Europe and will be a dangerous opponent.
On the boys' side, Vojtech Martinovsky is Europe's top-ranked U17 male player and has already won the U17 Nordic and Dutch Junior Open titles this season. Martin Stepan is fourth on the ESF U19 rankings and was a recent title winner at the Swiss Junior Open.
Switzerland are seeded to top Group D and David Bernet will have a point to prove after his surprise early exit from the Individuals event in the quarter-finals. Maja Maziuk is the top Swiss girl, ranked ninth in Europe and with trophies from this season's Czech and Swiss Junior Opens in her cabinet. Switzerland face Germany, Ireland and Hungary in their group.
European U19 Mixed Team Championship:
Draws: Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D |