The most important individual event in Greek table tennis the 2023 National men’s-women’s championship is approaching. It will take place in the indoor gym of Amyntaio Florina on the weekend of March 25-26. It is the first time that the town in the Region of Florina in Macedonia located at a distance of 33 kilometers from the city of Florina will host the National championship of the major category.
In the last two years the championship was held at the Peace and Friendship Stadium in Athens whilst in 2020 Chania Crete was the host.
# The entries list reached the number of 69 players from 28 clubs. In the singles 39 men and 30 women will compete .
# Ioannis SGOUROPOULOS and Konstantina PARIDI will defend their singles titles which they won in February 2022. They are in the 2nd and 1st places respectively of the seeding.
# Like last year’s Greek doubles champions they will work together again. The KONSTANTINOPOULOS brothers George and Konstantinos who have completed 5 national titles as a duo and Aliki KIOUFI with Malamatenia PAPADIMITRIOU who won the gold medal together for the first time in the event.
# Konstantinos ANGELAKIS reappears in the National championship and is also the 1st favorite. After the 2020 event in Crete where he also won the men’s singles national title he missed the 2021 and 2022 championships due to knee injuries.
# Among the first 7 favorites of the men’s singles in the upcoming event there are 5 Greek champions. Besides ANGELAKIS and SGOUROPOULOS there are Konstantinos KONSTANTINOPOULOS Tasos RINIOTIS and Giorgos STAMATOUROS.
# On the women’s side only PARIDI is among the participants has tasted the joy of a Greek title in women’s singles.
# In Amynteo the leading Greek in the world ranking Katerina TOLIOU four-time champion in the women’s singles and last year’s finalist was left out of the competition for the first time due to competitive activities abroad.
# The runner-up of Greece in 2022 in men’s singles and doubles Dimitris PAPADIMITRIOU and the “silver” in women’s singles in 2021 Elisavet TERPOU are also absent as well as Kallinikos KREANGA and Panagiotis GIONIS.
# The record holder of men’s singles titles Ioannis VLOTINOS chose another year to take part only in the men’s doubles.
# In the men’s doubles 18 pairs entered. In the women’s doubles 13 and in the mixed doubles 25.
# For the mixed doubles we should emphasize that it is returning to the program of HTTF after 13 years. This event was held last time in the season 2009-2010. On 2021-2022 the federation had included it in the calendar as a separate event but it did not meet the interest and it was canceled. This year it is included it again in the program with the rest of the events as it was done in the 2021-2022 season in the National championship of young ages.
# The last winners in mixed doubles before its suspension were in the period 2009-2010 Ioannis VLOTINOS and Katerina NTOULAKI.
