WTT Feeder Italy: Start with a “civil war” of Sgouropoulos-Stamaturos!

The last World Table Tennis Feeder for 2023 starts tomorrow Tuesday 12/12 in Italy and Greece will have a strong presence.

A total of eight sportsmen and women will compete in the city of Biela and through strong competition tests they will seek qualifications in the central boards or good placements in all individual events.

Panagiotis Gionis, Konstantinos Angelakis, Giorgos Stamatouros, Yiannis Sgouropoulos, Giorgos Konstantinopoulos, Katerina Toliou, Malamatenia Papadimitriou and Elisavet Terpou are on the mission, the national federal men’s coach Costas Vatsaklis will be in the technical guidance.

The internationals traveled to the province of the same name in Northern Italy on three different flights, trained at the Biella Forum and in the evening learned the special news of the draw. In the 1st qualifying round of singles, Sgouropoulos and Stamatouros will be opponents! In addition to teammates in the national team, they also wear the same shirt in the Greek A1 (Olympiakos), but with the… lottery tickets they face each other tomorrow, at 14:00 Greece, as such a scenario with athletes from the same country as predicted potential in the WTT since the beginning of the tournaments.

The Italian Feeder will last until Sunday 17/12 and includes the events of singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Gionis avoids the singles qualifier due to his world ranking and is straight into the main draw. In the women’s singles, according to the WTT website, there are no qualifiers, therefore all three of our athletes, Toliou, Papadimitriou and Terpou, go to the board of “64” (the draw has not been carried out yet).

In the singles qualifiers, Angelakis initially goes without a match in the 2nd round and there he will meet the winner of the match between the Englishman Ismail Akindiya and the Frenchman Jules Cavai.

Konstantinopoulos faces Federico Giardi from San Marino in the 1st qualifier. At the same point on the scoreboard, Sgouropoulos and Stamatouros “oppose” at noon on Tuesday, as we mentioned above. A similar coincidence, in fact, occurred right below the “64” board! The Italians Leonardo Muti and Antonino Amato face off and whoever wins will cross paths with the winner of the match between the two Greeks.

THE DRAWINGS NEXT SIDE

In men’s doubles two preliminary rounds will decide the qualification in the 1st round. Sgouropoulos/Konstantinopoulos face Lorenzo Ragni/Matias Monjusti from San Marino and if they win they will face the 1st favorite of this board, the Nigerians Orok Etim/Aziz Solanke. Gionis/Angelakis have a bye in the 1st qualifier and then claim the qualification against Andrea Puppo/Marco Cappuccio from Italy.

In the women’s doubles, a qualifying board of “8” was formed. In the only round Toliou/Papadimitriou will play against the Japanese Asuka Sasao/Mizuzu Takeya.

In the mixed doubles qualifiers, Stamatouros/Papadimitriou appear as the 1st favorites to have a bye and get on the board. Angelakis and Toliou are looking to get on the board against Jan Valenda/Zdena Blaskova from the Czech Republic.