With Yonezuka's defeat, the top of the draw opened up. Gobert did not take advantage of it though and in the next round he was beaten by Zelemkhan Batchaev (BEL) who himself suffered the law of Bachana Bolkvadze (GEO) in the quarter-finals.
The first quarter of the draw therefore held many surprises but the hierarchy was respected in pool B. Giovanni Esposito (ITA) was the best throughout the morning session, successively eliminating Yanis Hachemi (CAN), Ryuga Tanaka (JPN) and Yehonatan Elbaz (ISR). In the semi-final, once again Esposito was much more active than Bolkvadze, who was penalised three times quickly for refusing to engage with the kumi-kata, the Italian obtaining his ticket for the final.
Pools C and D strangely resembled Pool A with neither of the favourites able to take the upper hand significantly. As a result of this chess game, the semi-final pitted two outsiders, Ibrahim Aliyev (AZE) and Daniel Szegedi (HUN), with a victory for the Hungarian judoka being logged.
In the final, Esposito had the experience and Szegedi had youth on his side. It was youth that won, as Esposito didn't prepare his first attack enough and was imediately countered for ippon. This is medal number one for Szegedi on the World Judo Tour and it is a gold medal.
The first match for a bronze medal saw Zelemkhan Batchaev (BEL) face Ibrahim Aliyev (AZE). After a nice moment of groundwork, Batchaev applied an arm-lock to get the submission and win the bronze medal.
Croatia had a first chance to win a bronze medal in the men's categories thanks to Robert Klacar (CRO) who was facing Bachana Bolkvadze (GEO). Bringing a great rhythm, Kalcar was on the move all the time and before the first half of the contest was complete, with a skilful ippon-ko-uchi-gari, he scored a waza-ari, but that was taken down after video review. At least Klacar's pace forced Bolkvadze to be penalised twice and it was with only 4 seconds remaining on the clock that the Croatian judoka scored with a beautiful seoi-otoshi for ippon. The bronze medal was for the hosts, for Croatia.
Final (-73 kg)
Bronze Medal Fights (-73 kg)
