With a second victory in the final of the French league, Enebon of Sgouropoulos

Yannis Sgouropoulos’ Enebon is in the final of the French table tennis league. On Saturday night 03/06, it also defeated Jura More in the second semi-final of the playoffs 3-1, at home this time, and will now fight for the title in a double final against Rouen. Enebon had set the stage for qualification with a 3-1 away win on Wednesday 31/05, yesterday confirmed their role as favorites and now face their biggest challenge, to return to the titles after 2009 and the era of the legendary Kallinikou Kreanga. There is also the special element for Greek table tennis, in fact, that its second athlete has contributed to winning the trophy in a major European championship with the same team. It is something that has not happened in the past and Sgouropoulos, who was used in Saturday’s semi-final, will have an extra motivation. The first Pro A final will be held on Tuesday 06/06 at the Hennebont Ping Center and the second on Friday 09/06 at the headquarters of SPO Rouen Tennis de Table.

Enebon, who earlier this year won the Europe Cup, had advanced to the play-off semi-finals with the 1st place in the regular season of the 2022-2023 league. The victory at the home of Dzoura More had tipped the scales in her favor and a crowd of people turned up yesterday at her wonderful sports center to support her to …finish the job. In fact, the 4-time champion of France (all with Creanga in her team) also showed at the table that she had the upper hand and when she took a 2-0 lead, she secured entry to the final.

Sgouropoulos was not included in the starting trio. When the visitors went 2-1 down, Romanian coach Adrian Krizan started him for the 4th game in a row as a substitute for Sweden’s Christian Karlsson, but he ultimately did not get the chance to play. The Czech Lubomir Yankarik declared an injury problem and after typically doing a very short warm-up and playing one point, he shook hands with the Greek European champion and left. It should be noted, however, that Jura More also had a 4th player in the team, the Indian Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, who had competed in the first semi-final, but did not use him in place of Yankarik…

From the second semi-final of the play-offs, Rouen (3rd in the regular season of Pro A) went to the final at the expense of Angers also with two wins.

Detailed progress of the semi-final Enebonne-Jura More 3-1:

Christian Karlsson-Benetek Olach 3-1 (7-11, 11-4, 11-6, 11-7)

Anders Lind-Lubomir Jancaric 3-1 (5-11, 11-8, 11-6, 11-8)

Chuan Chi Yuan-Bojan Tokic 2-3 (8-11, 11-9, 7-11, 11-8, 10-12)

Yannis Sgouropoulos-Yiankarik 3-0 (11-0, 11-0, 11-0)