Champions League Men | 15 Oct 2013

STROCK with golden LI Fen arrives at Metz

Table tennis fans in St. Symphorien hall at Metz will have nice opportunity to see two individual European champions: actual LI Fen (Sweden) and former one WU Jiaduo (Germany). They will lead their teams in Group A Round 2 games of Women’s European Champions League this Friday (19h30 CET): Metz – SVS STROCK. Both sides lost their opening games, French team from 2012 WECL champion Berlin Eastside, while Austrian club was beaten by current no.1 seed Fenerbahce.

“SVS STRÖCK is expecting a huge challenge by Metz. Nothing to tell about WU Jiaduo – she is definitely a world class player with bombastic experience and still ready to beat all European players. Laura GASNIER played – in front of my eyes – a very good ECH in WSA and also the experience factor from Yunli SCHREINER is a big one”, stressed STROCK`s president and manager Martin SÖRÖS.

Sweden’s LI Fen surprised many experts winning recent 2013 LIEBHERR European Championships in SVS STROCK`s home at Schwechat. She beat several great players, among them 2005 ECH gold medallist LIU Jia, top seed SHEN Yanfei and, finally SHAN Xiaona in six games of ultimate stage. The 2009 ECH champion WU Jiaduo was stopped by Bernadette SZOCS in Round 2.

“Still – also after 1^st round results – the situation in our Group A is that all teams can end the group in position 1 and 4. For our team the situation in Metz is also not that easy: LI Fen played unbelievable and to go to Metz as fresh European Champion is good for the self-confidence. On the other hand all our players played a lot at the ECH and the job of our coach Aya UMEMURA will be to find the three players who are not too tired to bring 100%. Daniela DODEAN also was in big shape at ECH and Tetyana BILENKO and Petra LOVAS are always playing on a level that enables them to beat top players. I expect a 50:50-match and we will be very focussed”, concluded Martin SOROS.

Alex MILETIC, EWT, Alex MILETIC, EWT