European Seniors 2013: Event Preview
03 October 2013
Event Preview
The 32nd LIEBHERR European Table Tennis Championships start tomorrow(Friday) in Vienna’s Schwechat, Austria. This year’s edition will see both Team and Singles Events. Organisers expect 25.000 spectators during the 10 days of the competition.
The record holder Germany’s Timo BOLL was forced to withdraw so the run for the title in Men’s Singles Event is wide open, with the all eyes set on the Olympic bronze winner Dimitrij OVTCHAROV from the always strong German team. Aspirations for the German team have not changed, but Austria as a host is aiming high and there is no doubt that host nation will give it’s best to shine in front of home crowd.
Last year in the Danish city of Herning, Timo BOLL and Viktoria PAVLOVICH clinched the titles in their respective Men’s and Women’s Singles Event. Robert GARDOS and Daniel HABESOHN of Austria won the gold in Men’s Doubles Event, whilst Daniela DODEAN and Elizabeta SAMARA of Romania succeeded to the top of the medal rostrum in Women’s Doubles Event. In Team’s Event Germany and Netherlands were crowned in 2011.
The LIEBHERR European Championships will be LIVE on ETTU TV powered by LAOLA1.tv, and it will be greeted with a brand new look and feel on the official ETTU TV website.
Irish Hopes
A strong Irish team made up of Paul McCreery(pictured here), Gavin Maguire and Ashley Robinson, led by NPC John Murphy will take up the Irish challenge at this prestigious event.
In the Team Event, Ireland have been drawn in Group B of the Standard Division and will face Lithuania, Estonia, Norway, Cyprus and Kosovo. Gavin Maguire is in Vienna with the Irish team and is approaching the tournament in a very positive fashion:
“We've been dealt a very difficult draw, but there are no easy matches at any major international event, you're playing the best of the best from every country and Europe being the second strongest continent after Asia it could never have been easy. We have at some point played all of the countries in our group in recent years but there are 2 matches of particular or special interest to us those being Lithuania and Estonia, both teams we know very well and seem to meet at every European event.
Not only do we play them regularly they both have defenders we know very well, Lithuania have Tomas Mikutis a defender playing in the second Bundesliga and training daily with us in our centre in Eilenburg. I played him in the most recent World Championships in Paris and was unfortunate not to go closer having lost a 10-5 lead to draw level at 2 sets all, so this will make for an interesting match up as we know him so well yet he's ranked 100's of places above us in the rankings. Estonia have Aleksander Lushin who has also now made the move to our centre and we are practising regularly with him. In the Baltic Cup in Estonia I again squandered a lead, having 10-7 in the final set, I lost out 13-11. These matches are going to be enjoyable no matter what the outcome to play against friends but Ireland will be going out to try and win against the nations that are stronger than us on paper but we do have knowledge of the players which should work to our advantage.”
Ireland kick off the tournament on Table 12 at 8am(Irish time) tomorrow against Norway, with a 1pm match against Lithuania. A long day’s play will finish with a 6pm match-up with Estonia. The Group finishes on Saturday with matches against Kosovo and Cyprus before the battle for positions commences. Keep glued to ITTA Website and Twitter feed for official updates from Vienna. The Singles event begins on Tuesday 8th October – full draw details for Irish players will appear here also.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.comments powered by