Italy nets three bronze medals in tense Lasko semifinal sweeps

Carlotta Ragazzini was two points from toppling a Paralympic champion, and that was the clearest sign that Italy’s three bronze medals in Lasko carried more weight than the podium alone. Alongside Ragazzini, Matteo Parenzan and Ludo Bini each reached the semifinal stage on May 13, but all three were stopped before the final, leaving Italy with medals and a reminder of how fine the line is at the top of para table tennis.

Ragazzini’s class 3 semifinal was the night’s most dramatic. She pushed Croatia’s Andela Muzinic Vincetic, the Rio 2016 and Paris 2024 Paralympic singles champion, to a deciding fifth game and held two match points at 10-8. Muzinic Vincetic escaped 11-8, 8-11, 11-4, 7-11, 12-10, turning away the Italian at the last possible moment. For Ragazzini, though, the near-miss mattered as much as the medal. She had never before reached match point against Muzinic Vincetic in direct meetings, and the performance confirmed that her Paris 2024 bronze in women’s singles WS3 was no fluke.

Parenzan’s class 6 semifinal had a different shape but the same ending. He met Chile’s Ignacio Torres in a rematch of a 3-1 win from the Challenger stage a week earlier, only this time Torres answered with a 3-1 reversal of his own. The world No. 1 in the class found the decisive passages when the match tightened, denying Parenzan a second straight Lasko run to the top step. That matters because Parenzan arrived in Slovenia fresh off a Paris 2024 Paralympic gold in men’s singles class 6 without dropping a game, proof that one loss does not move him far from the center of the division. It does, however, show how quickly the order can flip across back-to-back events.

Bini’s task was the steepest. The 17-year-old faced Zhao Shuai, the Chinese great whose Paralympic resume includes class 8 gold in London, Rio and Tokyo, plus silver at Paris 2024, and lost 3-0. Even in defeat, Bini’s semifinal berth put him in the medal bracket against one of the most decorated players in the sport’s history, a useful measure of how far he has already climbed.

Italy’s Lasko stretch now looks like more than a good week. In the Challenger event held there from May 5 to 9, Parenzan took gold, Giada Rossi and Federico Falco won silver, and Ragazzini added bronze before the Elite week began on the same Slovenian tables from May 11 to 15. With the ITTF’s 2026 Para Table Tennis calendar spread across roughly 25 events worldwide, Italy’s consistency in Lasko suggests depth. The next step is sharper than depth: convert the 10-8 lead, solve the rematch, and make the best players in the world feel pressure all the way to the end.