President of Croatian club Martin-Tino CASL looks forward to the Seamaster ECLW semi-final leg no. 1 against top seed KTS Enea Siarka Tarnobrzeg (March 16 18:00)
First of two Seamaster ECLW semi-finals will be held this Friday March 16 in the Croatian city of Zagreb where no. 3 seed Dr. Casl hosts no. 1 KTS Enea Siarka Tarnobrzeg. Seven Top 50 world players promise big fight DOO Hoi Kem (world no. 11) LI Jie (no. 18) and FU Yu (no. 36) from the host side and Elizabeta SAMARA (no. 22) HAN Ying (no. 41) LI Qian (no. 42) and Viktoria PAVLOVICH (no. 49) from the Polish champion. Both sides are dominating in their national leagues.
Two-time ECLW winner LI Jie (2008 and 2010 champion with Dutch side Heerlen) actual best ranked European player at the ITTF World ranking list had several significant results in last three years like two ITTF Europe-Top 16 finals (2017 winner 2018 runner-up) and Women`s Singles silver at the 2015 European Championships. In same three years 2015-18 Tarnobrzeg`s Elizabeta SAMARA won one ECLW crown (with Fenerbahce 2015) European Championships Singles gold (2015) and bronze (2016) and 2018 ITTF Europe-Top 16 bronze.
“It`s obvious that we have the best season in our history but size of success depends on the upcoming games against Tarnobrzeg” stressed President of Croatian champion Martin-Tino CASL. “It will be the final before the final. These two teams are definitely two strongest sides in Europe in this moment I would say – even in the world hence nobody can predict the winner. On both sides we will see world class players.
Dr. Casl will fight for its 78th consecutive victory in all competitions so its President stated:
“Special motivation comes from the fact that we won 77 consecutive matches in last three years. This is very important for our self-confidence. In last five months we had 30 games and each of them we won easily many times with the highest possible score as we did it twice against very respectable club of Szekszard in the group stage”.
Martin-Tino CASL believes that this season will be special one for his club:
“Next three months are crucial for us facing the most important matches in four different competitions: Seamaster ECLW Super League Croatian National Championships and Croatian Cup. We are determined to go down in history by winning all four titles. But we must be patient preparing ourselves from game to game”.Concerning other semi-final clash I expect Bursa`s win (they play against reigning champion Berlin this Sunday). I hope that we will see them in the final.”