After the European Table Tennis Championships in Sweden, the competition moves to the clubs as the start of the 2023-2024 Champions League approaches.
The top European Team Cup starts in the middle of the week with stage 1 for men and women and Greece will be represented again this year by Panathinaikos. The “greens” had also competed in the event last year, recording, in fact, the first ever presence of a Greek association in the institution and it is of special importance for him and the sport in the country that he decided to measure his strength there once again.
The athletes of Panathinaikos leave on Wednesday for Spain, where for the first group they will compete from Thursday and then the qualification against the organizer Reus Miro, the Czech KST Plus Hodonin (head), the French ALSL TT Grand Quevilly and, also , Spanish Girbau Vic TT.
The team, in the first phase, is made up of Katerina Toliou, Konstantina Paridis, Ana Tofand, while next Saturday Maria Arcetou will go to Spain to compete in the last match against the French team. The mission leader will be the team manager, Sotiris Humos.
The women’s stage 1 has two groups of five teams. They compete against each other once on a one-to-one basis and in stage 2, where the competition’s favorites await in new groups, the top two teams from each advance.
Those who will experience elimination in the Champions League continue their European “adventure” in the Europe Cup, as was done last year with Panathinaikos, who had finally progressed to the quarter-finals of the second-tier inter-club competition.
Panathinaikos will compete from Thursday for three days in the city of Reus. It is the home of the team, which was strengthened last season and the season before last in the Spanish League by Tolio. He will certainly have a difficult task, however, with his three experienced and well-known key athletes, he can reach the qualification, which will also be something unprecedented for a Greek team in the Champions League.
The schedule of matches, as indicated with local times on the ETTU website is as follows:
Panathinaikos AC (GRE) V Girbau-Vic TT (ESP) 21/09/2023 16:00
SKST Plus Hodonin (CZE) V Panathinaikos AC (GRE) 22/09/2023 16:00
Panathinaikos AC (GRE) V MIRO Ganxets Reus (ESP) 23/09/2023 12:00
TT Grand-Quevilly (FRA) V Panathinaikos AC (GRE) 23/09/2023 19:00
* In Krumlov, Czech Republic, the Hungarian Budaorsi Sport Club, the “host” TT Moravsky Krumlov, the Spanish Linares, the also Czech Ostrov ZS and the French TT Joue Les Tours will compete for the second group.
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