In a thrilling away Europe Cup Table Tennis Men’s Quarter-Final against Gwiazda Bydgosz, Panagiotis Gionis’ Bogoria prevailed 3-2 sets and got a positive result from the top defender too, who was placed at No. 3 because he was coming off a known leg problem and he is still unprepared.
In the crucial third partial game, Gionis competed and, after a new inactivity of more than a month, reminded, alongside his quality, his great courage and mental strength at 43 years old. At that point, Grodzicz’s side went 2-1 up, eventually winning 3-2 in sudden death in the fifth set to earn the first chance to qualify ahead of the return leg at home on 10 February.
Bogoria come from the Champions League and earned the right to continue in the second tier of the European Cup after finishing second in their group. Bydgosz, on the other hand, started this year’s European journey from stage 2 of the Europe Cup. There she won first place in her group and later in the round of 16 eliminated Czech SKST Tesla Havirov with a 3-1 home win and a 3-2 set loss away.
Gionis (currently ranked 84th in the world) has successfully completed treatment, trained sparingly and made himself available again to his team after Champions League group games, highlighted by their win against reigning European champions Qiu Dang of Borussia Dusseldorf.
On Saturday, he entered third in the formation of the trio and in any case would only play one race because he is still not able to play at 100%. His opponent was the Polish Artur Grella (number 398 this week in the international ranking list with an increase of 62 places). Gionis had the odds on his side, even if he didn’t even have to charge on his return, and managed to take the win in 3-1 sets.
Bogoria later leveled at 2-2 when Moldovan left-hander Vladislav Ursu scored a second individual victory. In the final, however, the Pole Marek Badowski defeated the Spaniard Carlos Caballero with a mini-overturn and marginal difference in the fifth set.
In detail, the development of the Bydgosz-Bogoria 2-3 match:
Vladislav Ursu-Marek Badowski 3-1 (10-12, 11-9, 11-9, 11-5)
Carlos Caballero-Milos Regimski 1-3 (9-11, 10-12, 11-8, 8-11)
Arthur Grela-Panagiotis Gionis 1-3 (7-11, 9-11, 11-7, 7-11)
Ursu-Rezimski 3-0 (12-10, 16-14, 11-1)
Caballero-Badowski 2-3 (11-5, 6-11, 11-7, 9-11, 5-6)
* After intervening league games, Bogoria will host Bydgoszcz in the second quarter-final on 10/02. Whichever team makes it to the top four, they will again meet a team from Poland, namely Dzialdovo, which eliminated the Austrian Wiener with two wins.
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