Samokhin Holds Firm, Noirault Enjoys a Perfect Day in Antibes

Tiago ABIODUN walked into the fourth game at 0-3 down. For a U19 player at a closed invitational in Antibes, that scoreline usually marks the end — especially with Yoan VELICHKOV on the other side of the table, the Bulgarian who had impressed with an early attacking game and rapid exchanges. But ABIODUN did not claw back by hitting harder. He clawed back by stretching every rally by one more beat, pushing VELICHKOV out of his comfortable zone in the middle of the table and forcing his opponent to generate his own power. Over the next four games, the Portuguese player won four in a row. Final score: 4-3.

What matters is that this comeback stood alone. Across the same day of play, I counted at least four occasions when a player fell behind and then won in a deciding game. Aleksei SAMOKHIN recovered from 2-3 down to beat ABIODUN 4-3. Antoine NOIRAULT recovered from 1-3 down to beat VELICHKOV 4-3. Samuel ARPAS also came back from 1-3 down to beat Flavio MOURIER 4-3. Four reversal scripts in a single day, on the same table, in front of the same small crowd.

For an analyst like me, that phenomenon deserves more than a line of results. There are two entirely opposite readings, and both are reasonable. The first: this is proof of nerve — a U19 cohort that knows how to stay cold when pushed into a corner. The second: this is proof of instability — players not yet able to close out a match while leading, and who then push themselves into a position where they must come from behind. I have followed European youth table tennis long enough to know that, between the ages of 16 and 18, both readings usually coexist inside one person.

To understand why the day in Antibes was so dense with seven-game matches, the event has to be placed in its proper frame. This is the Europe Youth Top 10, an invitational for the top U19 boys in Europe organised by the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU). The "Top 10" name reveals the mechanism: a pre-selected invitation list based on continental youth ranking, not an open entry. The format is a round robin, with each player facing almost everyone else, and each match played as best of seven games.

That format explains much of what we see. A best-of-seven match inside a single round-robin day means each player may have to play dozens of games within a few hours. At senior level that is ordinary. At U19 level it is a test of fitness and focus that few events create. When a player leads 3-0 and then loses 3-4, it is very hard to separate a tactical error from the sign of legs that have grown heavy.

The entry list stretches across Europe: Russia, France, Bulgaria, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia and Romania are all represented. That variety is a signal. At youth level, no table tennis nation dominates absolutely the way China dominates the senior game. This event is an internal European stage — no Asian player appears, simply because it is a closed ETTU event restricted to European member associations.

Why the best-of-seven format changes everything

Before turning to individual players, I want to address something that is often overlooked: the format itself. Elite table tennis is used to best-of-five in many rounds and best-of-seven in the biggest matches. But for a youth round-robin event, stretching every match to a maximum of seven games has deep consequences.

First, it rewards the ability to adjust. A player who loses the first two games still has every chance, as long as he can read why he is losing. Second, it punishes physical fragility. In the sixth and seventh games, technique is rarely the deciding factor; what decides is who is still lucid enough to choose the right single shot. Third, it turns each match into a chain of small decisions, where one mistake does not end the match but a chain of mistakes does.

For a 16 or 17-year-old, those three traits combine into a harsh environment. Four comebacks in a day stop being a miracle; they become almost the inevitable consequence of a format in which the leader must learn to shut the door — a skill very few young players have mastered.

SAMOKHIN — the man holding the rhythm

On the recorded evidence, Aleksei SAMOKHIN is the clearest pace-setter. The Russian went unbeaten within the reported set of results, with two close wins: 4-2 over VELICHKOV and 4-3 over ABIODUN after falling 2-3 behind. The notable part is not that he won, but how he won two hard matches in two different ways.

Against VELICHKOV, SAMOKHIN let his opponent level at 2-2 before pulling away. Against ABIODUN, he fell 2-3 behind before turning it around. Those two scripts suggest a player who knows how to "live" inside a long match — not panicking when pegged back, not collapsing when trailing. At U19 level, that quality is rarer than technique.

I write "on the recorded evidence" deliberately. A short report on a youth event usually recounts only part of the matches — the ones deemed noteworthy. So when I say SAMOKHIN went "unbeaten", I mean the set of matches named, not necessarily the entire round robin. That caution matters for an analyst: the "unbeaten" label may be real, or it may simply be an effect of selective editing.

NOIRAULT and the perfect day

If SAMOKHIN held the rhythm, Antoine NOIRAULT made the strongest impression on the Saturday. The Frenchman won all three of his recorded matches: 4-1 over ARPAS, 4-1 over BLASZCZYK, and 4-3 over VELICHKOV after falling 1-3 behind.

Three matches, two one-sided scorelines and one comeback. That is an ideal results structure: dominant enough to show class, hard enough to show nerve. For a player competing at home — Antibes is in France — maintaining form under the pressure of a home crowd is no small signal. Many young players perform well at neutral venues but stall when the stands are waiting for them.

The second notable French player is Nathan PILARD. Both of his recorded matches ended 4-1, over ARPAS and BLASZCZYK — the most dominant scorelines in the entire reported set. If NOIRAULT showed completeness, PILARD showed cold efficiency. A day in which both French players won, plus MOURIER, shows one thing: France brought to Antibes a U19 cohort with real depth — at least within the results we have.

VELICHKOV and the price of a hard day

At the other end of the results sheet, Yoan VELICHKOV had the most gruelling day. The Bulgarian lost three matches to three different opponents: 2-4 to SAMOKHIN, 3-4 to ABIODUN after leading 3-0, and 3-4 to NOIRAULT after leading 1-3.

What stands out is that two of those three defeats came in deciding games, and VELICHKOV was leading in both. Level at 2-2 against SAMOKHIN, then lost. Leading 3-0 against ABIODUN, then lost. This is the kind of result that invites the label "weak mentality". But I want to ask a different question: was VELICHKOV the worst player of the day, or the one with the hardest draw?

He faced the three strongest opponents of the event — the unbeaten SAMOKHIN, ABIODUN with his comeback, and NOIRAULT with his perfect day. In a small round robin, meeting three top opponents back to back means there is no match in which to "recover". With the available data, I cannot distinguish a physical limit, a psychological limit, and a merely unlucky draw. And I will not rush to conclude on the data's behalf.

ABIODUN — the man of moments

Tiago ABIODUN deserves separate mention. The Portuguese had a volatile day: 4-2 over BLASZCZYK, 4-3 over VELICHKOV from 0-3 down, and a 3-4 loss to SAMOKHIN after leading 2-3.

Notice that structure. ABIODUN came back from 0-3 in one match, then allowed his opponent to come back against him in another. He was both the hero of one reversal and the victim of another on the same day. For me, this is the most accurate portrait of a U19 player: full of potential, full of instability, and entirely dependent on the state of the game in front of him.

ARPAS and the moment at the end of the day

Samuel ARPAS closed his day with a 4-3 comeback win over Flavio MOURIER after falling 1-3 behind. That was MOURIER's only recorded result, and one of two recorded defeats for ARPAS — who also lost to NOIRAULT and PILARD, both 1-4.

There is a striking pattern here: ARPAS lost heavily to two leading French players, yet won a tight match. This suggests the gap between the leading group and the middle of the field is real — but it lies not in the ability to win tight matches, but in the ability to avoid making matches tight. The leaders do not win because they are better in a seventh game; they win because they do not need a seventh game.

BLASZCZYK and the silence of results

Marcel BLASZCZYK lost all three recorded matches: 2-4 to ABIODUN, 1-4 to NOIRAULT, 1-4 to PILARD. Two of those three scorelines were 1-4 — defeats that leave little room for argument. This is the least informative data about a player, because it does not tell us where he is strong; it only tells us he had not yet found a way to counter the leading group that day. A results set made only of defeats is a results set that cannot be used to judge a person.

The round robin as a laboratory

There is a reason I prefer reading round-robin events to knockout events. A round robin creates a web of comparison. When A beats B, B beats C, and A meets C, we get a triangle of information that a knockout never gives. In Antibes, that triangle shows most clearly between the French group and the Bulgarian group.

NOIRAULT and PILARD both beat BLASZCZYK 4-1. NOIRAULT beat VELICHKOV 4-3, ABIODUN beat VELICHKOV 4-3, SAMOKHIN beat VELICHKOV 4-2. Reading those three results, we can place VELICHKOV just below the leading group but above BLASZCZYK. That is a relative ordering, and it is more useful than any qualitative remark.

But a laboratory is only trustworthy when we know what it lacks. Here, the triangle is missing many edges. I do not know how SAMOKHIN played NOIRAULT, because that match is not recorded. I do not know how PILARD played SAMOKHIN. The web has holes, and those holes are exactly where every inference becomes fragile.

Two names leave the stage

Among those lines of results, one detail is easy to skim past but is, to me, the most important of the whole report: two players withdrew through injury. Patryk ZYWORONEK of Poland and Robert ISTRATE of Romania could not continue.

That is a medical event, not a tactical calculation. And it raises a question European youth table tennis is facing with growing clarity: under a round-robin, best-of-seven format with multiple matches in a single day, is the workload exceeding the safe limit for a 16 to 18-year-old?

Two injuries in a small field is not a crisis. But it is a signal. When I look back at the results set and count at least six matches that went to a seventh game, I see a picture of accumulated pressure — each seventh game is a moment the body is pushed near its limit, and those limits compound hour by hour.

A day seen from outside the table

Based on my experience following youth matches, there is one thing I always watch that the scoreboard never records: the time between games. At senior level, a player enters the interval with a plan. At youth level, many players enter the interval with an emotion. That difference decides matches more than any single shot.

When VELICHKOV led 3-0 and then lost 3-4, what I want to see is not the final missed shot. I want to see how he sat down on the bench after the third game, and how he walked out after the fourth. The scoreboard does not tell me that. And that is precisely the limit of any results-based analysis — including mine.

The contrarian angle: nerve, or instability?

This is where I want to bet on a different reading from the conventional one. Four comebacks in a day sounds dramatic. But drama does not equal high quality.

Think about it in probabilistic terms. A best-of-seven match is a short sequence of events — a small sample, a large variance. When many matches in the same day run to a seventh game, that is usually a sign of a balanced field, not necessarily a sign of excellent players. At senior level, the leading players tend to finish matches faster because they can create a gap and hold it. At U19 level, that balance reflects something else: no one is yet able to pull clear of the rest.

In other words, what four comebacks tell me is not "this cohort has extraordinary nerve", but "no one in this cohort has yet learned how to shut the door". That is a subtle but decisive distinction for an analyst. The "clutch" label — nerve in the decisive moment — is the most easily applied and least verifiable label in sport.

I have made this mistake before. On the Rostov night in 2026, I sat in the stands and read Japan against Belgium through pressing numbers, predicting that Japan would bring on a forward to protect the scoreline. I was wrong. The match did not follow my arithmetic; it followed human chaos. I retell this because it holds for a youth table tennis match too: every prediction model has limits, and those limits show most clearly in the moments we think we have understood. The Rostov night taught me that every calculation has a limit, but a story does not.

A second contrarian angle: French depth, or a French viewpoint?

One detail needs to be made clear. The event is held in Antibes, a French city. The report's photography was taken by a French photographer. And in the recorded results, three of the eight named players are French.

To me, that does not mean "France has superior depth". It means we are reading a report from the host nation's viewpoint. A French outlet covering a French event will naturally devote more lines to French players. That focus is editorially reasonable, but it creates an illusion of data.

The lesson here goes beyond one event. Whenever we read a short results set, we are reading a filtered set. The writer chooses which matches to tell. And what is chosen usually reflects what the writer considers important — or what their readers want to see. An honest analyst must always ask: which matches went untold, and how might they change my conclusion?

A third contrarian angle: the limit of one day

And this is the most important point. The entire report covers roughly one to two days of a youth event. There is no ranking, no specific age, no prior head-to-head history, no data on playing style, weapons, or physical base. I do not know whether SAMOKHIN is a forehand or backhand loop player. I do not know whether NOIRAULT serves topspin or backspin. I do not know who is tall and who is fast.

In that situation, the most honest response is not to invent a technical analysis that sounds erudite. The most honest response is to state clearly: here I have results, and I can only analyse results. Anyone who tells you they know SAMOKHIN's playing style from this report is inventing it. Rigorous verification does not mean fabricating numbers; it means saying plainly when there are no numbers.

What to verify in the days ahead

Every tactical scheme is a promise; only controlled chaos keeps it. For Antibes, the promise lies in the remaining days of the round robin. I will watch three things.

First, whether SAMOKHIN can keep his unbeaten run when he meets the French group — players he is not yet recorded as having faced. Second, whether VELICHKOV recovers after a day squeezed dry, or whether the reverse-sweep defeats haunt him. Third, and most important, whether any further player must withdraw through injury — because if that number rises, the story of the event will no longer be who beats whom, but how we are treating the bodies of 17-year-olds.

I read the odds with my eyes, but I read a match with my heartbeat. And in Antibes, my heartbeat was fastest not at the moment a player won a seventh game — but at the moment two names left the field. I do not write to conclude; I write to open a new lane: if this format keeps pushing young players to a seventh game match after match, the question worth asking is no longer who wins the title, but who is still standing at the end.