In the opening round Austrian club plays away against Fakel Gazproma Orenburg (Friday 14.20 CET)
The reigning TTCLM champion and no. 1 seed opens the new season by the home encounter against SPG Walter Wels which players are – as they stressed – very excited to play opening game against Fakel Gazproma Orenburg. President of Austrian club Bernhard HUMER hopes that newcomer from Japan Yaya OSHIMA could be able to repeat excellent performance from recent China Open where he reached the semi-final (in the Round of 32 Japanese eliminated Orenburg`s Dimitrij OVTCHAROV in seven games):
“As we have a newly composed team (BOBOCICA and OSHIMA are new to the club) we are very happy to play against Orenburg in the first round. We know that Orenburg is a very strong opponent so there is not too much pressure but maybe we can win a game having in mind that Oshima played excellent at China open some days ago.”
Walter Wels` coach Edi VECKO agreed with his president: “We know that we are the underdog in this match but we will try our best.” On the other side Orenburg`s coach Valeriy SALABAEV announces his victorious squad (Dimitrij OVTCHAROV Vladimir SAMSONOV Alexei SMIRNOV):
“As always all home matches we take very seriously. I hope nothing will prevent us to put the strongest lineup. In the new TTCLM season we shall try to defend the title won a year ago.”
