Papadimitriou became the first Greek woman in the table tennis world ranking

On Tuesday, the ITFF issued the evaluation tables for week No. 39 from the beginning of 2024 and among the women, the first Greek table tennis player is now Malamatenia Papadimitriou. The 20-year-old left-hander came from Sweden’s WTT Feeder in Halmstad. She got 10 points with her presence in the first round of singles and, going 59 places higher in the world ranking, she was at number 342 and surpassed Katerina Toliou.

The latter dropped this week to No. 367. He held this first place for many years, in fact since the fall of 2016 (when monthly tables were still published) he was permanently at the top for the Greek side!

In the juniors, meanwhile, there was a significant change for Stathis Manolopoulos, who gained 41 places in the Under 19s by entering the top eight of the Bosnia/Herzegovina Youth Contender last week.

Among the women, in the last few days there was only the participation of Papadimitriou in a rated event. At the Halmstad Feeder, the current champion of Greece in the Young women’s singles would start her journey from the only qualifying round. She had a “bye” in the end and did not compete, but her passage on the board of “64” helped her in the points.

Thus, with a total of 24 points it rose to number 342 from 401 the previous week. Toliou fell five places and now appears at number 367 with 20 points. The third Greek is Elisavet Terpou, specifically at No. 394 with 18 points.

In the case of men, no competitive presence was recorded recently, however, Panagiotis Gionis is at number 83, Yiannis Sgouropoulos at 190 and Konstantinos Angelakis, as the third from Greece, at 277.

In the international evaluation tables for the young categories, only the improvement of Manolopoulos is noticeable, since he was preceded by his successful placing in the Youth Contender of Sarajevo. In the Under 19s, the experienced defender was ranked 5-8 and in the corresponding category of the world rankings he went to number 244 from 285 the previous week. In the tournament he received 95 points and now shows 465 in total.

The matches in Bosnia/Herzegovina resulted in a new Greek entry in the rating tables. With his “maiden” participation in a tournament of the institution, Archangelos Gionis got his first 9 points and was at number 1,635. We remind you that our 16-year-old athlete competed in two age categories, Under 17 and Under 19, and was eliminated in the group stage.