Antibes: Samokhin Holds Firm as Noirault Enjoys a Perfect Day

In Antibes, a Bulgarian player named Yoan Velichkov entered the second day of competition with three defeats already behind him, two of which stretched to a seventh game. What stands out is not that he lost, but that he had led in both of those matches before letting the advantage slip. I sat recording game after game, and the more I wrote, the more one thing repeated itself: at the U19 level, the gap between a winner and a loser rarely lies in technique — it lies in the ability to keep a cool head once the scoreline has turned. An entire day of competition in the south of France distilled into a single question — who is calm enough to close out a match when everything is going against them? When at least six matches in one day reach a deciding game, and four different players come from behind to win, it is no longer a personal matter. It is a trait of an entire generation.

The Europe Youth Top 10 is an invitational event of the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU), gathering the continent's leading U19 players. It is not a professional ranking-point event under the WTT system, but a checkpoint along the youth-development pathway. In other words, winning in Antibes does not lift anyone up the world ranking, but it does write their name onto the watchlists of national associations. That is why I always make time for events like this: they are not glamorous, but they reveal who the federations are betting on for the future.

The event takes place in Antibes, in the south of France, hosted by the French federation, with the participation of the associations of Russia, France, Bulgaria, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia and Romania. The format is a round robin, with each player contesting multiple matches in a single day, up to seven games per match. This is the standard format of high-level ETTU youth invitationals, where the demands on fitness and mental stability are pushed far higher than in ordinary knockout events. When you have to play four or five matches in a day, the question is no longer who has the best stroke, but who manages their energy and emotions through each game.

There is one important detail that many reports skip over: two players, Patryk Zyworonek (Poland) and Robert Istrate (Romania), had to withdraw due to injury. In a small field like this, losing two players does not just thin the lineup; it changes the entire points picture. For those who remain, it is an opportunity; for the two themselves, it is a question mark over how much load an eighteen-year-old body can bear.

The clearest highlight of the day was Aleksei Samokhin (Russia). The player kept an unbeaten record and came through his two tightest matches with composure: beating Velichkov 4-2, then beating Abiodun 4-3 after trailing 2-3. What I noticed about Samokhin was not his strokes — the report provides no technical detail whatsoever about style, equipment or school — but the way he handled games in which the momentum had swung toward his opponent. At the U19 level, the ability to win a match from behind is a more reliable indicator than any statistic on speed or spin, because it reflects the hardest thing to teach: organized calm. I have watched more than a few youth events, and an eighteen-year-old who can hold his nerve in a seventh game is exactly the kind of player national coaches are searching for.

Antoine Noirault (France) had a perfect day with three wins on Saturday, including a 4-3 comeback against Velichkov after trailing 1-3. Nathan Pilard (France) also impressed with two wins, both 4-1 — the most dominant scorelines recorded across the entire day. Tiago Abiodun (Portugal) had a strong day, most notably a comeback from 0-3 to win 4-3 against Velichkov. Samuel Arpas (Slovakia) closed out his day with a 4-3 win over Flavio Mourier (France), also after trailing 1-3. Meanwhile Marcel Blaszczyk (Poland) endured a difficult day with three recorded defeats.

What makes Antibes worth pausing over is the density of comebacks. Four different players — Samokhin, Abiodun, Noirault and Arpas — each won at least one match from a losing position in a deciding game. When four different people do the same thing on the same day, it is no longer individual luck. It is a sign of a very tightly matched level, where no one is strong enough to finish an opponent off early. A seven-game match measures more than technique; it measures the ability to endure pressure point by point. In a round robin where each player must contest several matches a day, the winner is usually the one who forgets the previous match fastest.

On the French side, the presence of three players — Noirault, Pilard, Mourier — among the highlights is a signal of the depth of that country's youth academy. Both Noirault and Pilard produced dominant wins, showing they did not merely win but won convincingly. I still remember the line I often repeat in content roundtables: people waved me away at Go Dau because I was not an insider, they were right, and that is my advantage. The outsider's viewpoint lets me see what insiders sometimes overlook. And here, what is overlooked is the injury question: two players withdrawing from a small field is a matter worth more discussion than any individual's results, because it touches the physical limits of an entire age group.

What most reports skim over: the phrase 'perfect day' for Noirault and 'holds firm at the top' for Samokhin are both built on an incomplete dataset. The original report lists only selected matches, not the full results of a round robin. That means Samokhin's 'unbeaten' is unbeaten in the matches that were recorded, and Noirault's 'perfect' is perfect in the matches that were told. This distinction may sound small, but it is the line between analysis and propaganda.

In Antibes, the event is hosted by France and covered with a French photographer involved. France appearing with three players in the highlights may reflect genuine strength, but it may also reflect an editorial angle tilted toward the host nation. Both possibilities have grounds, and the available data is not enough to separate them. An honest analyst has to say that rather than pick a side for convenience. Croatia 2026 had no secret, only details most people did not take the time to look at — and in Antibes, that detail is the list of matches that went untold.

And there is a question the report does not answer: what caused Velichkov, who led in both of his deciding-game defeats, to let the advantage slip? It could be a fitness issue from playing too many matches in a day, it could be a mental issue, or simply a hard draw. The data does not let me conclude, and I will not pretend that it does. What I know for certain: two injured players I look at as two future contracts about to be rewritten, and no organizer wants that.

What is worth watching in European U19 is not who won in Antibes, but whether these players can hold their composure when they step onto a bigger stage. A comeback at eighteen does not guarantee a top-level career, but it reveals a psychological foundation that many more talented players lack. The open question for the near future: within three to five years, which of the names from Antibes will appear in a major quarterfinal — and by then, will anyone still remember they once won from behind at a youth event in the south of France?