The first news from the semi-final round of the Polish Table Tennis League concerns Bogoria Grodzisk, the team with which Panagiotis Gionis has been starring for a long time. Defending her title, the Polish champion took the first step towards the final on Tuesday night, as she took a 3-0 set away from Bitom. On Friday, she plays her second match at her “home” and is expected to “seal” the qualification.
The top Greek table tennis player was absent from the first semi-final and will also miss the second leg due to the minor injury he recently suffered in Sarajevo, during his great run to securing the sixth Olympic participation of his career! At the European Pre-Olympics Gionis collected some fluid in the achilles of his right leg and is in the second and last week of the treatment recommended by the doctors.
Very soon he will return to normal training and in terms of playing duties in the Polish team he will prepare to strengthen them in the single final of the Super League, which is set for June 23. The athletes of the National team, Konstantinos Angelakis, Yiannis Sgouropoulos and Giorgos Stamatouros, competed in the Polish championship again this year.
During the regular season of the championship, Bogoria took first place. Olympia Unia Grudiaz of Angelakis, Sgouropoulos took sixth place and also entered the playoffs, while Balta Gdansk of Stamatouros was in ninth place and in the extra matches for the stay.
In the quarter-finals of the playoffs, Bogoria easily eliminated Yaroslavl with two 3-0 home-away wins. Olympia Grudiaz was beaten twice with 3-0 sets in the same round by the very strong Dzialdovo, which we remember last month had won the 2023-2024 European Cup at the expense of Bogoria. Angelakis had competed in both matches, Sgouropoulos, however, in none of them.
In the semi-finals and the away victory over Bitom, the champions secured a strong trio, despite the absence of Gionis, and lined up with the Poles Milos Rezymski (he had also qualified from stage 2, let us remind you, together with the Greek defender for Paris 2024), Marek Badowski and Japan’s Jin Takuya.
In the other semi-final, Dzialdovo prevailed as the home team, also with a 3-0 set of Bydgosz, so the possibility of a new “duel” with Bogoria is now very serious.
In the play-offs, Gdansk secured their stay in the division. Beat Pogon Lebork and Zamos without Stamatouros in the process.
Finally, let’s mention the individual statistics of our internationals in this year’s tournament, according to the data of the Polish Federation: In Bogoria, Gionis has won 21 games so far and shows 19 wins and 2 losses. The only athlete he hasn’t beaten this year is Sweden’s Truls Meregaard, current European men’s team champion and former world runner-up in men’s singles (with Moldova’s Ursu, who also qualified from Sarajevo for the Olympics, had one win-one loss). ]
Angelakis had a full season at Olympia Grudiaz. In 19 matches he had 11 wins and 8 losses and the positive results against the Ukrainian Yaroslav Zmundenko (an athlete who also got the “ticket” to Paris from the recent Pre-Olympics) and the Japanese Kai Konichi from Djaldovo stand out.
With the jersey of the same team, Sgouropoulos played only 6 individual matches and scored 4 wins and 2 losses.
In Balta Gdansk, Stamatouros had only 5 matches and a record of 1 win and 4 losses.
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