Member Associations | 11 Feb 2021

Champions on duty again in the playing venues

The matches have been restarting in the various divisions of the Hungarian club Championships, the planned date of the final four in the Extraliga is already known, but it is still unclear how the individual National Championship will be played.

“Dear table tennis friends, dear table tennis players!” started Kristóf LAJTAI, Secretary General of the Hungarian Table Tennis Association, his speech directed to all involved in the sport of table tennis. “Our national championships have been relaunched, although we know that not everything has returned to where it was before in normal times. First of all, let us thank you for starting with the matches, despite not being able to train and prepare smoothly and continuously, and for being as flexible as possible and looking for solutions in the face of difficulties. We thank you for your perseverance in our sport as well as those who will only be able to return to the competitions later, and we also thank you for being so patient in the last few months, a year full of problems and challenges. I would like to express my gratitude to the sports director of the Hungarian Table Tennis Association, Péter FAZEKAS and the president of the Referee’s Committee, Tibor KÉKEDI. They made a great job by consulting all stakeholders in this sport, and they had to work in a situation where it was not possible to make a good decision for everyone. The future is difficult to predict in this unusual situation, but I hope that by the second half of the year, albeit slowly, the trend will be continuous improvement and slowly everything can return to normal. In the meantime, we will try to create opportunities for competitions in accordance with the legal requirements. I wish everyone good health and joy in practicing sports.”

There was a clear demand from the participating teams to restart the league, and the ball was bouncing again in the men’s Extraliga on the weekend of January 9-10. In the women’s forefront rounds take place in a cup system, with the next round to be played in April. The final four of the Extraliga is planned – by the national federation – to be held two weeks before the individual European Championships in June.

In addition to the Extraliga, first division of the National Championship has also started, and the Second and third Divisions will be relaunched from the end of January and at the beginning of February.