Chinese fencer Wanwen Su took inspiration from a pumped up Chinese crowd and pulled off the upset of 7th ranked Emily Cross. Cross never seemed able to find the answer to the Chinese fencer’s distance and fell 7-15. In other matches, Hanna Thompson fell to Caroline Golubitsky 13-5 and Erinn Smart lost to French fencing Corinne Maitrejean 15-9.
Thompson, expecting Golubitsky to fence more methodically was initially caught off guard by the German’s aggressiveness and did not adjust in time to bring back the match.
In her top-32 match up Erinn Smart ended the first period in a 4-4 stalemate. She then came out to score the first 2 points of the second period, and then the fencers traded points until it was 9-9 in the third period. At that point Maitrejean figured Smart out and scored the next 6 touches to win the bout – mostly on a series of counter-attacks or attacks into Smart’s preparation and defeating the American’s long attacks.
The US women’s foilists will take part in the team event next and will open up against the Polish team, who also saw all of their fencers exit in the top 32.
Overall, the round of 32 was full of blowouts as only 3 of the 16 matches were decided by 5 points or less. This round also had only 2 upsets, Su beating Cross and Katja Waechter (GER) defeating 9th seed Cristina Stahl.
Perhaps the most exciting bout was the 16/17 matchup between Aida Shanaeva of Russia and Sylwia Gruchala of Poland. Down during the match, Gruchala clawed her way back to tie the match as time expired. In overtime Gruchala had priority, but was unable to connect on her attack and Shanaeva advanced to the round of 16 by a 12-11 score.