New experience of Tolio in Poland, successively this year’s premieres in Bulgaria and Turkey, Cekura

Katerina Toliou is now testing her strength in a new major league abroad and Dimitra-Thomais Tsekoura happened to start consecutively in two European countries.

Toliou, with an international career of more than ten years now, agreed after the summer with the Polish Bebetto AZS UJD Czestochowa. Last year’s “golden” women’s singles Balkan champion is gaining new experience and is sure to benefit, as the Polish League has high quality and excellent organization.

The team from the city of Czestochowa played on Sunday at home against Politechnika Rzeszow for the fifth game of the championship and prevailed with 3-2 sets after a strong match. The Greek defender was placed in position 3 and fought very hard with a 3-1 set from the Polish international Suzana Wielgos.

On the weekend, Cekura played the first matches of this year in the first division of Turkey and a weekend before that she competed in the top national division of Bulgaria. In these countries it renewed its collaborations with the same clubs and at the same time has a third agreement with a Spanish team, CTT Terrassa from Barcelona.

In Turkey initially, Cekura moved to a stronger competition after last year’s promotion from the second national division with ASSK Istanbul. Simply, the Turks opened a new category for women this year, they call it Elite and the first category became the second rank in the hierarchy.

In addition, the system of conducting each team match has also been changed and ends in favor of the team that reaches the first of the three individual victories. At the end, there is also a double – if needed. The first two days were held in Istanbul with four matches. ASSK progressed victoriously and the women’s doubles champion of Greece in 2018 scored 6 wins and 1 loss. Indicative of the high level that the only defeat came (with 3-2 sets) from an athlete of the Iranian national team, who keeps the team unbeaten since last year.

This year Tsekoura has as her teammate the top Bulgarian Maria Yovkova, well known to Greek fans from her presence in A1 with AEK and Pera Athens. It should also be noted that two of our young internationals, Stella Tzaridou and Yiannis Malamoudis, will compete in Turkey and the second category of clubs this year and will gain valuable experience.

With concentrated matches in a gym, in Varna, the championship of the first national women’s division of Bulgaria also progressed. Tsekura renewed its cooperation with Asarel Medet and started with 3 wins and 1 loss of the club. She had 5 wins, 1 loss in singles and 3 winning matches in doubles. In these matches she also met Bulgarians who have passed through Greece, beating Kalina Hristova of AEK with a 3-1 set, while in Bulgaria and Turkey she successfully faced Elitsa Zafirova who played a month in our A1 as well.

In the top division of Bulgaria, we remind you that in recent years, Ioanna Gerasimatou has been a key athlete of the champion Comfort. Our left-handed international will start this year’s games there in November.

In Denmark meanwhile, the first half of the season has already come to an end in an interclub championship with Greek participation. The League of the country has progressed quite a bit and has very encouraging news in store for the teammates in B75, Gerasimos Hatzilygeroudis and Alexandros Madesis. Based on their results, our two internationals are tied with Czech Koldas for fifth place among the best players in Denmark!

The team, meanwhile, is in third place in the standings after the first half. In the same club, but with the second team, Stathis Manolopoulos started his matches and also brought very good results. In particular, he had four individual wins and 2 losses in the second national division and his confrontation with Alan Bentsen stood out. He narrowly lost in five sets to a Danish athlete-legend, who in 2005 was crowned European champion in the men’s team and still continues at a high level.