Mauro Nespoli's silver shines a medal worth

A magnificent Mauro Nespoli fought until the last shot in a relentless sequence against Turkey's Mete Gazoz, coming out of the final confrontation defeated but undoubtedly with his head held high.

The silver medal won by the Italian Team is still a great achievement. Nespoli's ride to the final match began in the Round of 16, where he defeated Brazilian Marcus D'Almeida 6-0 (29-28, 28-26, 29-25). In the quarter-finals he won against German Florian Unruh 6-4 (28-28;26-29, 29-28; 28-26;27-27) and finally beat Chinese Taipei Chih Chun Tang 6-2 (29-27;28-30;28-27;29-28) in the semifinals. On his way, then, came the young Turk Mete Gazoz, who had already demonstrated his value by first overcoming the American Ellison 7-3 and then, with the same score, the Japanese Furukawa in the semifinals.

The final clash was immediately very balanced: Nespoli won the first set (29-26) and then reached a tie in the second set (28-28) and tried to keep his concentration. But Gazoz dids not give him time to enjoy the advantage and realigned the destiny of the match (26-27) and continued in the fourth set in perfect equilibrium (29-29). Finally, in the last sequence of shots, two centres out of ten weaken the hopes of Nespoli, who failed to reach his opponent in the last shot (26-29).