Other Events | 2 May 2014

Sweden halted in Round of 16

Sweden lost against Singapore great duel of the Round of 16 at the ZEN-NOH 2014 World Team Table Tennis Championship. They suffered 3:1 defeat. Kristian KARLSSON was close to give Sweden extra space and chance to win. He was 2:1 in the lead against GAO Ni

Sweden lost against Singapore great duel of the Round of 16 at the ZEN-NOH 2014 World Team Table Tennis Championship. They suffered 3:1 defeat. Kristian KARLSSON was close to give Sweden extra space and chance to win. He was 2:1 in the lead against GAO Ning player ranked at position no. 14 in the world.  KARLSSON is ranked at position no. 97. “He even had match points at 10:7. He made few mistakes and against players such as GAO Ning you cannot allow that. You can upset the favorite, but there can not be any mistakes,” explained coach Peter SARTZ.

Next on duty was Jens LUNDQVIST. He beat YANG Zi. LUNDQVIST lost first game by narrow margin and after that everything was over. “Par GERELL lost against CHEW. He is still looking for his game. The one he had at the German open when he reached quarterfinal.”

The duel between GAO Ning and Jens started with close game, but at the end GAO won in straight sets. “You do not get many chances with GAO.”

SARTZ was satisfied with the result generally. “Right now we have to create no. one player for the team. Of course we have no. one, but he need to be among top 20 in the world for the greater result.”

Two teams already booked their semi final places in Men’s Teams Event at the ZEN-NOH 2014 World Team Table Tennis Championship. Unfortunately for Europe in both cases Asia prevailed. China overcame Austria, whilst Japan beat Portugal on their way to penultimate stage.

Unlike their adversaries, both Portugal’s and Austria’s player came back to arena for a second time today for an evening duel, exhausted from the early morning fights against their Round of 16 adversaries.

Ma Long beat Daniel HABESOHN at the very beginning of the match, before Robert GARDOS put ZHANG Jike under severe pressure. GARDOS forced World and Olympic champion to go full distance. In the last due Stefan FEGERL lost against XU Xin in straight games.

Shaky start is well above Japan. Now they look mighty and lethal as third seeds should. Koki NIWA, Jun MIZUTANI ad Kenta MATSUDAIRA showed no weak points tonight against Portugal’s marcos FREITAS, Tiago APOLONIA and Joao MONTEIRO.