Three talented table tennis players from Chania traveled to central Europe on Monday and from Tuesday they will test their strength successively in two World Table Tennis Youth Contenders. These are Nikos Angelidis, Stefanos Mavromatakis and Theofanis Markoulakis, whose first stop is Slovenia.
From August 27th to September 2nd, Otoček will host the country’s most powerful tournament for children from the categories of mini-boys to teenagers. The boys enter the tables first and when their matches are completed, at the end of the month, they will move to Varazdin to succeed the girls in the WTT Youth Contender in Croatia which takes place on the same dates (27/08-02/09).
Our talented athletes also do a training session at the “Sport Centre” of Otochek and in this debut at the institution they will be under the technical guidance of the coach of OA Chania for many years, Michalis Angelidis.
His 14-year-old son Nikos, third in boys’ doubles and mixed boys-girls doubles in the 2024 Panhellenic Championship, will take part in the Under 15 and Under 17 age categories.
The 13-year-old Mavromatakis, current Greek singles and doubles champion, participates in Under 13 and Under 15.
The 11-year-old Markoulakis, champion of Greece in this year’s singles mini girls and winner of the final of the development Open in girls, will compete in Under 11 and Under 13.
It should be added that the last two have moved to Ikaros Kastritsiou with promise, while Angelidis went in the summer in the same way to SPA Lykovrisis Pefkis.
On Tuesday, the start in Otochek takes place with the first phase in the Under 17 and Under 13 age categories. On Wednesday, the groups for the Under 15 and Under 11 categories will take turns. On Monday, the draws took place and the Chaniotes learned their opponents.
In the Under 17 category, 37 qualifying groups were formed, with the last group consisting of four athletes. Angelidis went to the 35th group, where he will meet the Austrian Patrick Skerbinz (head) and the Slovak Pavol Kokavecs.
In the Under 15 category there were 21 qualifying groups with the last two being of four athletes. Angelidis was drawn in the 15th group. He is led by the Chinese Zhu Guanhong and will also find in front of him the German Tien Fong.
Mavromatakis is in the 20th group with Spanish Alexander Malof (leader), Korean Ma Jeongyun and Slovenian Timo Urbas.
In the Under 13 category, seven qualifying groups were created and it is important for the two Greek athletes that they will have the opportunity to play a good number of matches.
Markoulakis is in the first group that has five athletes. He will challenge for the qualification against the Spanish Alexander Malof (head), the Polish Adrian Nowakowski, the Croatian Nikola Djuric and the Italian Leonardo Trevisan.
Mavromatakis went to the third group, also of five athletes. He will be up against Austrian Luis Fegerl (head), Montenegrin Milan Vucetic, State Matteo Terria and Italian Giorgio Borghese.
In the Under 11 category there are three qualifying groups and they also give Markoulakis the opportunity for many competitive tests. They were drawn in the first group and will be chasing entry to the table, too, through four matches.
The first favorite in the category is the Austrian Luis Fegerl and the Polish Adrian Nowakowski, the Croatian Simun Milosevic and the Kazakh Dagir Daniyarov are also rivals.
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