European Team Championship: On Tuesday the decisive matches of the National Table Tennis team for qualification

After defeats in the opening groups, the National Table Tennis Teams took Monday off in Malmö and on Tuesday they give everything in the decisive final match of the first phase of the European Team Championship, the men against Hungary and the women against Spain .

The scoring data became clear on Monday after the second round of competition. Portugal in the fourth men’s group beat Hungary 3-1 in sets and confirmed their role as leaders. Hosts Sweden in the women’s eighth group overcame Spain 3-2 in sets to also secure top spot.

That means a win on Tuesday by any score gives the privileged second place in our representative groups, with the men proportionally having higher claims and the women looking to exhaust their hopes of going above and beyond. At 17:00 on table 4 the men’s national team competes and at 20:00 on the same table the women’s team.

In the men’s fourth group, Greece had lost 3-1 set in the first match against Portugal and had training and rest on Monday.

The day’s schedule included the Iberians’ second and final group match and Hungary’s first. The former European Championship and European Team Games winners were the favorites to win, but they struggled to live up to the predictions.

In the final 3-1 set, Markos Freitas was again the main protagonist, as he prevailed in both of his individual matches, like yesterday against Greece. He opened the scoring when he beat Adam Zudi 3-2 in overtime of the fifth set and closed it with a 3-0 set against Benke Majoros.

Thiago Apolonia from position 2 had earlier defeated Majoros 3-0 sets, while in between Tamas Lakatos had a positive result for the Magyars, when he beat Joao Monteiro 3-1 sets.

Nantor Etseki is Hungary’s fourth player, the national team is playing in Sweden with Panagiotis Gionis, Yiannis Sgouropoulos, Giorgos Stamatouros and Konstantinos Angelakis. Kostas Vatsaklis is on the bench and the effort is being strengthened by the “golden” Balkanionikis, Konstantinos Konstantinopoulos, as a physiotherapist and training assistant, because he was in Sweden for training with Record.

In the women’s eighth group, Greece started their matches on Sunday with a 3-0 set loss to leaders Sweden. Monday was also a training and rest day for her.

In the second matchday, the “host” had a tough match against Spain, which relies on two athletes of Chinese origin. Sweden took the lead twice, drew level and eventually came away with a 3-2 win in front of their home fans and top spot in the group with the final match going to five sets.

From position 1, Linda Bergstrom’s defensive style of play defeated Sophia Xuan Zhang from 0-2 (overtime in the “against” set) and then lost to Maria Xiao 3-1. Felipa Bergand took down (the only native Spaniard) Yana Riera 3-0 in the third set of the match and in the end Kristina Selberg outlasted Zhang 3-2. For Spain, Ciao also had a second win against Selberg with 3-0.

The Iberian country, which has 1 point, still has Maria Berthosa in its composition. Greece’s tie ranks with Katerina Toliou, Malamatenia Papadimitriou, Konstantina Paridis and Ioanna Gerasimatou. Giorgos Karytsas is on the bench.