Other Events | 2 May 2014

Austria halted Greece to secure quarters

At the ZEN-NOH 2014 World Team Table Tennis Championship, in the morning session all European duel for the quarterfinal in men’s Event, between Austria and Greece, concluded in favor of Austrian team. Robert GARDOS justified his position as a leader of th

At the ZEN-NOH 2014 World Team Table Tennis Championship, in the morning session all European duel for the quarterfinal in men’s Event, between Austria and Greece, concluded in favor of Austrian team. Robert GARDOS justified his position as a leader of the team with two victories over Kalinikos KREANGA and Konstantinos PAPAGEORGIU, whilst Stefan FEGERL beat Anastasios RINIOTIS. PAPAGEORGIU was the only player to score for Greece. He beat Daniel HABESOHN.

“GIONIS was not in the team so that helped us a little, but still it was demanding match. I know I had to win my match against RINIOTIS after 1:1. It was dangerous to prolong the match to decisive duel. In fifth match HABESOHN will meet KREANGA and last time he lost against Greek player at the European Championships. With my victory, we were safe, because GARDOS was very good against PAPAGIORGIU” explained Stefan FEGERL.

Without CHEN Weixing in this match and Werner SCHLAGER in the team, Austria is very lethal again. “With Robert who became very strong no. one player we are confident we can achieve very good results. We also count on CHEN in the matches where our adversary play poor against defenders…Austria has four good players and we proved it in Japan,” said FEGERL.

The match against France, night earlier, cost Greece a lot. They find their place among top 12 teams, but they lost Panagiotis GIONIS for today’s match. He injured his arm. “At the end of the Championships I have to be satisfied. We are among 12 teams and that was our goal. We have great chemistry together, and great team spirit. It is a shame that after two medals at the European championships we could not afford to have physiotherapist here. To illustrate how deep is the crises I will just say that the players pay for their airplane tickets to come here to play. They are giving 100 percent for the team, but when you lost key player and you do not have doctor to help before Round of 16 at World Championships, you need miracle to win. We asked friends for favors and received help from other teams, but without proper medical attention GIONIS could not recover for the match against Austria,” explained coach Konstantinos VATSAKLIS.