Another important moment in the jealous international career of Panagiotis Gionis, another proud moment for the Greek table tennis. The top defender was impressive on Saturday morning in his premiere at the European Top 16, in Montreux, Switzerland and with a 4-2 set victory against the Austrian Robert Gardos, he qualified for the “8”. At the beginning of his 8th participation in the annual tournament of the best athletes in Europe, he took out his soul and many strengths as if he were still … a teenager, as if he no longer suffers from the chronic problem in Achilles.
He has already reached the distinction by entering the quarterfinals for the 5th time in the top organization and at 19:20 on Saturday 26/02 he will face either the German Patrick Franziska or the Croatian Tomislav Pukar.
Gionis (number 59 in the current world ranking) gave another closed and exciting match with Gardos, who is number 27 in the world and has, among other things, in his record three gold European medals (two in the men’s doubles, one in the group). He is over 40 years old too, but with a first place this year in Feeder tournaments in Germany. The image and the development of the match justified our athlete and the federal coach Costas Vatsaklis, who wanted the Austrian in the draw.
Gionis made a very strong start in another match and won the first set by a wide margin. The also very experienced Gardos improved his performance, controlled the balls better from defense and equalized with a marginal difference.
In the 3rd set, Gionis saved (10-9) and lost a set of bowls (11-10) to finally prevail for 2-1 with an impressive rally.
In the 4th set, the Greek ace was ahead 10-6, but he saw Gardos approaching the point and got a time out. The Austrian took five points in a row and acquired a set of bowls (11-10), but again the athlete of Kostas Vatsaklis played with a clear mind and correct offensive options to make it 3-1.
He gained a lead in the 5th set with 6-4. Gardos tied at 7-7 and in the last part of the set he also calmly took a very good spin to reduce the score.
The champion was not discouraged, anyway he is always “accompanied” by a very good psychology and with solid defenses and the well-known effective attacks he was ahead in the 6th set (6-3). Then he went to +4 (8-4) and even when Gardos utilized his serve and reduced it to 8-6, he immediately found the solutions and went to the match bowl (10-6). The final 4-2 was written with new exceptional spins in one of the many spectacular rallies of the race (11-4, 9-11, 13-11, 13-11, 8-11, 11-7).
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