16 year-old Anqi Luo of Mississauga, ON celebrated her first podium result in an international Women's Singles competition at the BTK Safir Open in Örebro, Sweden.

The young Canadian had a difficult draw but landed a series of upsets to claim Bronze. Starting her run, Luo defeated Swedish defender Carine Gamborg by a score of 3-1. Next up, she faced Melanie Bierdrager and won the match 3-0.

Then two Chinese players: first in the quarter finals Luo won against Song Han by a score of 3-0 until  she had to recognize the superiority of another Chinese player, the eventual Gold medallist, Sun Jie by a score of 2-4.  In two of the four lost games Luo was leading 7-4 and in the other game 8-4. However, the Chinese player had considerably more match experience which turned the match into her favor.

Luo caught the eyes of many at the Guadalajara PANAM Games where - as a 15 year old - she had  good wins for the Canadian women's team. Now, a year and a half later Anqi Luo has registered her first podium finish on the Senior level - a great success for the Ontario youngster.

"We have been working through some technical problems over the last few months," analyzed Canadian Women's Team Coach Junya Chen. "I think we made progress; we are extremely happy with this result. This medal will give Anqi confidence - her first podium in an international Senior competition - the last few months were very difficult, but this result made it all worth it."

Five other Canadian juniors made the trip to Sweden combining a one week training camp with four days of competition. "We learned a lot and some of our juniors had some good wins; but this was a trip where we wanted to gain international match experience - mission accomplished," reports Max Surprenant, the teams assistant coach.

The team will return to Canada on Monday and compete in a national elite competition in Mississauga at MyTTC. Matches will start Friday, March 1 evening at 17:00 and go all Saturday and Sunday to 16:00.