“Drawn” for the National teams in the European Table Tennis Championship

With two of Sweden’s table tennis stars, Truls Meregaard and Linda Bergström, in attendance, the draw for the 2023 European Team Championship took place at Turning Torso Malmo, the tallest building in the country, where the Greek National Teams learned their opponents.

The men’s group was drawn in the fourth group and will meet Portugal (leader) and Hungary.

The women’s team was placed in the eighth group and will face the “host” Sweden (leader) and Spain.

The premier event will take place from 10-17 September 2023 and our two national teams had secured a place among the 24 teams in the final stage at qualifying stage 2 in early May in Croatia.

For both men and women, eight groups of three teams were formed. In the Men’s Event the equal first favorites are in order Germany, Sweden, France, Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia, England and Belgium.

In the Women’s Event, the leading teams in their groups are Germany, Romania, France, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary, Luxembourg and Sweden respectively.

According to the system of conduct, only the winning teams of the groups advance to the final eight and then the tableau proceeds with “knockout” matches.

THE STATEMENTS OF VATSAKLI AND KARYTSA ABOUT THE LOTTERY

They commented on the draw of the European Teams Championships on the E.F.O.E.P.A. website. the federal coaches, Kostas Vatsaklis and Giorgos Karytsas.

“Anyway, we would have a difficult draw, since we are not high in the seedings. These are two very good teams. Portugal is in charge, as such we met them in the group stage and in 2019 at the European Championship in Nantes.

In the recent era we beat it once, in 2013 at the European Championships in Svesat and then took the historic silver medal. They are a very good and experienced team, but of course we will chase our chances for victory”, emphasized Mr. Vatsaklis and added that:

“Hungary is a school in the European arena, it is also strong and, if nothing else, we will have two very interesting matches. We are waiting how and how to start preparing for Malmö, I believe it will go very well and, let’s be strong, we will go and claim entry into the eight.”

For his part, Mr. Karytsas pointed out that: “They are both difficult teams, but surely these games will be a very nice experience for us. The main goal is to present ourselves as competitively as possible. After all, it is very important for us that we secured our presence in the European Championship and in Malmö we will look to do our best both individually and as a team.

We know that these teams have first-class players and can become very competitive at the highest European level. Spain also have Chinese women in their composition, but we will try to push them and show our own value as well.”