A partnership assembled just six weeks ago delivered one of the standout upsets of the doubles competition in Cluj-Napoca, as Italy's Danilo Faso and Görkem Öçal of Türkiye came from two games down to eliminate second-seeded Romanians Iulian Chirita and Andrei Istrate 3-2. The final scoreline - 8-11, 4-11, 11-7, 11-9, 11-7 - told the story of a match that shifted completely on the momentum of a pair willing themselves back from the brink. The result books Faso and Öçal a quarterfinal berth and sends the home crowd's second seeds home far earlier than anticipated.
A Partnership Born from a Simple Phone Call
There was nothing elaborate about the origins of this combination. Öçal reached out to Faso roughly a month and a half before the tournament, floated the idea of pairing up, and Faso accepted. That informal arrangement - the kind of opportunistic teaming that occasionally surfaces across youth sports worldwide, from table tennis circuits in Europe to the fast-developing competitive scenes that feed global rankings, not unlike how unlikely partnerships emerge in disciplines as varied as doubles tennis or even the team formats seen across the iran super league basketball calendar - produced something the seedings did not account for. "We decided to play together about a month and a half ago. Görkem asked me and I said yes, I would like to. Now we are very happy because we are doing very well," Faso said after the match.
From 2-0 Down to Three Straight Games Won
The opening two games were comfortable enough for Chirita and Istrate. Faso and Öçal were playing within themselves, not yet finding the rhythm that would eventually define the contest. But rather than fragment under pressure, the new partners turned inward, pushed each other verbally, and rebuilt. "We were 2-0 down and we were not playing at our level. They were playing well, but we were not playing very well. Then we started to tell each other, 'Come on, we can do it, we have to fight for this match.' We started very well in each of the next games, leading 3-0, and that helped a lot," Öçal explained. Games three, four and five went 11-7, 11-9 and 11-7 respectively - a controlled, escalating dismantling of a pair that had been in command not long before.
Former Rivals, Now a Formidable Force
What gives this story an additional layer is the history between the two players. At the European Youth Championships the previous year, Faso and Öçal met three times - the Under 15 Singles final, the Doubles final and the Team event final between Italy and Türkiye - with Faso winning on each occasion. The irony of their Cluj-Napoca alliance is sharp: the player who had beaten Öçal repeatedly at youth level is now his partner, and the chemistry that might have been adversarial has been redirected into something productive. Knowing the draw had set them against the tournament's second seeds only sharpened their focus. "When we saw the draw, we were not very happy, but before the match we were very focused. We wanted to beat them because after that we would have a chance to fight for medals," Faso said. That clarity of purpose, even as underdogs against a seeded home pairing, was evident in how they managed the decisive stages of the contest. Their quarterfinal appearance is now a genuine platform for something more.
