Our national men’s table tennis team is the Balkan champion for 2023. In Albena, Bulgaria, on the evening of Sunday 03/09, it completed its excellent course in the Balkan championship undefeated and climbed to the highest step of the podium.
In the final, they beat the host country 3-1, while earlier they had come out unscathed from a very difficult semi-final against Turkey 3-2.
He recorded a total of six victories, made excellent performances with athletes of different generations and enlisted the elements of strong psychology and competitive passion.
Greece does not present its first team in the competition (like all strong countries, since the European team championship is approaching) and this adds value to its distinction and at the same time shows the depth, which our representative group has in terms of quality. The women’s national team gave everything to get on the winners’ podium and did not succeed in the details. In the quarter-final against Serbia, he fought with 3-2 and a marginal difference in the last match, which was decided in five sets. The team then achieved two victories and took 5th place.
Our representative men’s group started its course as the 1st favorite in Albena and gave Greek table tennis another important and proud moment. They had beaten Bulgaria 3-1 and in yesterday’s first in the group, they showed from the start that they could reach the top, but of course they had to overcome high hurdles.
Konstantinos Konstantinopoulos, Tasos Riniotis, Gerasimos Hatzilygeroudis made up the trio of the last two games, George Konstantinopoulos, Nikos Antoniadis had their own contribution, while regional federal coach Sotiris Zikos sat on the bench.
The team was made up of three different generations of athletes, with 40-year-old Riniotis being the most experienced, the Konstantinopoulos brothers following as those born in the 90s, and Hatzilygeroudis and Antoniadis representing the new generation.
Our national team created an atmosphere of perfect cooperation, had a very good face overall, and positive conclusions were also reached individually. For the sake of truth, the 21-year-old Hatzilygeroudis finished the team undefeated and was the one who kept the team claiming victory against Turkey.
The men’s national team reached the gold medal for the second time in the history of the institution. The first was in 1993 in Constanta, Romania with Daniel Tsioka, Yiannis Vlotinos, Yiannis Kordoutis and Fanis Avrantini. Also last year in Sarajevo it was 3rd, again it had Zikos on the bench and Hatzilygeroudis and Antoniadis in the lineup. The Konstantinopoulos, on the other hand, emerged for the second time “golden” Balkanionikis after 2008 in the children’s team.
The women’s national team made a very good effort with their second team to enter the medals. The other national teams didn’t line up with the best line-up either, but of course, even so, Serbia’s traditionally strong squad was a high hurdle in the all-important quarter-final. The game lasted for about three hours, had constant fluctuations and finally Greece lost 3-2 at the limit and lost the chance to enter the 4th. In the composition in Albena it has Aliki Kioufi, Malamatenia Papadimitriou Ioanna Gerasimatou, Dimitra-Thomaida Tsekouras and in coaching the federal coach Giorgos Karytsa. At the conclusion of the match against Serbia, Gerasimatos led 9-7 in the decisive 5th set, but lost four points in a row and eventually the match. Earlier, Kioufi from position 1 of the team and Papadimitriou from position 3 had a hard time getting to victory.
Our national team then went to ranking matches in positions 5-8. They had no trouble defeating Kosovo and Bosnia/Herzegovina 3-0 to take 5th place. The girls had entered the round of 8 yesterday with 2nd place from their group, they showed that they deserved to enter the semi-finals, but the details were not in their favor today.
The development of the Greece-Bulgaria 3-1 final in detail:
Konstantinos Konstantinopoulos-Vladimir Petkov 3-1 (11-3, 11-5, 10-12, 11-7)
Tasos Riniotis-Petio Krastef 1-3 (9-11, 9-11, 11-7, 6-11)
Gerasimos Hatzilygeroudis-Radoslav Kotev 3-0 (11-9, 11-9, 11-8)
Konstantinopoulos-Krastef 3-2 (11-6, 6-11, 13-11, 6-11, 11-6)
The development of the semi-final Greece-Turkey 3-2 in detail:
Tasos Riniotis-Ali Afsin Gul 2-3 (11-8, 9-11, 11-7, 9-11, 8-11)
Konstantinos Konstantinopoulos-Ibrahim Guduz 2-3 (12-10, 11-7, 4-11, 8-11, 4-11)
Gerasimos Hatzilygeroudis-Ugurchan Dursun 3-0 (11-9, 11-9, 11-5)
Riniotis-Gunduz 3-2 (8-11, 12-10, 11-8, 5-11, 12-10)
Konstantinopoulos-Goul 3-1 (11-4, 11-5, 11-13, 11-7)
In the women’s national match against Serbia, Gerasimatou was defeated in the first match 3-0 by Bezek and then Kioufi defeated Tomziak 3-0 and Papadimitriou 3-1 Radak. In the 4th individual match, Kioufi won 3-2 against Rebek (15-13 in the opposite set) and in the end Gerasimatou won 3-2 against Tomziak. Kioufi, Tsekoura and Gerasimatou competed against Kosovo, Papadimitriou, Tsekoura and Gerasimatou played against Bosnia, and individual victories came with 3-0 sets.
Until the time of writing the text, the organizers had not posted the match sheets in detail on the BTTU website, while they announced that due to the long duration of some matches, the awarding of the team awards would not take place tonight.
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