2012 European Championships: Daily Report

October 21, 2012

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Courtesy of Butterfly.tt

Richard Prause: 10/20/2012

"Poor Denmark"

Dear Table tennis lovers!

Well, now the European Championships in Herning reaches its peak. Saturday and Sunday the decision will be made who may take home the medals. The winner will have a wide smile filled with joy and the first big losers unfortunately can be announced already: Our table tennis friends from Denmark.

Almost full promotion of the event was based on superstar Michael Maze and the same goes more or less for Mie Skov, Danish Miss Table tennis – but things turned out differently: Not forgetting the well deserved congratulations to the Austrian Butterfly player Stefan Fegerl for his first round victory, but for the host nation this is a disaster. Not only Maze and Skov, but also Groth, Sternberg, one of the favorites in doubles suffered prompt defeat on Friday. This of course has negative effect on the TV coverage, sponsors and for the whole event, which apart from this fact is very well organized.

Stefan Fegerl was not the only man to cause upset on Friday. Also Patrick Franziska with his victories against Karakasevic (4:3) and Werner Schlager (4:1) proved once again to be one of the greatest hopes in Europe for future. Same goes for Liam Pitchford, beating high seeded Robert Gardos from Austria.

Furthermore, Andrej Gacina (eliminating Marcos Freitas) and Joao Monteiro (with second round victory against Christian Süss) have well deserved particular notice.

In the ladies event young German Sabine Winter more and more raises closes the gap to Europe’s best women. Overcoming Dutch defender Li Jie can very much be booked as positive surprise. I am sure that German federation will share great moments with her during next years.

Best regards
Richard Prause