On the 12th of June 2015 a new major event in sports was brought to life- the first ever European Games started in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. This event is similar to the Olympic Games with the one distinction that only athletes from the National Olympic Committees of Europe were authorized to participate.

 

TEAM EVENT:

Men:

The Table Tennis competition started on June 13^th with the team event. Like in all other major events again a lot of WSA players showed their skills in Baku.

Tomas Konecny scored for his Czech team but couldn’t prevent them from loosing against Belarus.

 

For Austria the 3 WSA-players Robert Gardos, Stefan Fegerl and Daniel Habesohn competed and from the beginning showed that they are in very good shape. The first game against Croatia was won 3:0. Gardos and Fegerl won their singles against Tan Ruiwu and Andrej Gacina and Gardos/Habesohn beat Pucar/Tan in 3 straight games in the doubles.

 

Alexandr Shibaev contributed a point against Adam Pattantyus for his Russian team, which won 3:0 against Hungary.

 

For the Portuguese team WSA-top player Marcos Freitas competed next to Thiago Apolonia and Joao Geraldo who both practiced at the WSA prior to the event. Freitas as well as Joao Geraldo defeated Romanias Adrian Crisan. The 3^rd winning point was contributed by the Portuguese double.

 

In the Quarterfinals Austria faced Russia and again Gardos, Fegerl and Habesohn showed their excellence and won in straight games 3:0.

 

For Portugal Marcos Freitas scored again and helped his team to a 3:0 victory against Poland. Therefore the Portuguese team had to face Austria in the Semifinals.

This game developed to a thrilling fight as Gardos lost 2:3 against Apolonia and Fegerl won 3:2 against his WSA training partner Marcos Freitas. Fegerl showed mental strength in this match as he managed to catch up a set lead of Freitas two times and in the end conquered 16:14 in the fifth set. After Gardos/Habesohn lost their double, Fegerl again played a very close match against Joao Geraldo. But this time he had to admit the predominance of his opponent and lost 2:3.

 

Portugal went to the finals where they faced France who defeated Germany that was enfeebled by the outage of Timo Boll. Marcos Freitas won against Simon Gauzy and lead his team to a 3:1 victory. After the Euopean Championships 2014, this was the second Gold Medal for their team. Congratulations to our friends from Portugal who have a very strong bond to the WSA!

 

Austria played against Germany in the bronze medal match. Again Germany had to surrender Timo Boll and after Daniel Habesohn defeated Patrick Baum 3:0 in the first match with a very strong performance and Fegerl/Habesohn won the double against Ovtcharov/Baum, the german team had to realize that the Bronze medal would go to Austria.
Congratulations to Robert, Stefan and Daniel-well done guys!

 

Women:

In the Womens team Event 4 WSA-player participated. Tetyana Bilenko, Matilda Ekholm, Sarah de Nutte and Andrea Todorovic.

 

Todorovic only played in the double and her Serbian Team lost against the Netherlands. Sarah de Nutte from Luxembourg lost her match against Li Qian from Poland and her team lost 1:3.
For the Ukraine, Tetyana Bilenko scored against Alexandra Privalova and also won the double. The Ukraine therefore defeated Belarus and went to the Quarterfinals.

Matilda Ekholm showed a very strong performance for Sweden. She won against Elizabeta Samara from Romania 3:0 and lead her team to the victory.

 

In the Quarterfinals, Sweden and Ukraine faced each other. While Tetyana Bilenko continued her winning streak against Linda Bergstrom, Matilda Ekholm lost her match against Margaryta Pesotska in straight games.
In the Semifinals Ukraine lost against the Netherlands 2:3. Bilenko was defeated by Li Jie. In the Bronze medal match against Czech it also went poorly for the Ukraine. Bilenko lost against Iveta Vacenovska 1:3-the same result like her team in the end.

 

The Gold Medal went to Germany who defeated the Netherlands in the final.

 

SINGLES EVENT:

Men:

In the first round of the Singles Event, only two WSA players had to compete. Tomas Konecny lost against Daniel Kosiba in a close match. Mihai Bobocica won the first round but was beaten afterwards by Wladimir Samsonov.

 

In the second round Robert Gardos played against Bojan Tokic. Unfortunately Gardos couldn’t follow up his strong performance from the Teams event and lost 1:4. Alexandr Shibaev was close to victory against Par Gerell but in the end lost 3:4. Stefan Fegerl like in the Teams event again showed mental strength and beat Daniel Gorak 4:3.

Marcos Freitas won against Lubomir Pistej in 4 straight sets and went to round 3 where he couldn’t retrieve his best performance and lost against Par Gerell. For Stefan Fegerl it went similar. He didn’t have his best day and therefore lost against Kou Lei 1:4. Thus a bit surprisingly the third round meant the end of the line for all WSA-players.

 

Dimitrij Ovtcharov finally won the Gold Medal, Wladimir Samsonov the Silver Medal and Bronze went to Kou Lei.

 

Women:

In the Singles Event also WSA player Lea Rakovac could show her abilities. She won her first-round game against Alexandra Privalova 4:1. Alex Galic on the other hand lost her match against Barbora Balazova 1:4 and Sarah de Nutte was defeated by Carole Grundisch in a very close game 3:4.

Matilda Ekholm played strong in the first round against Anelia Karova and won 4:0. Unfortunately she couldn’t renew her performance from the teams event against Elizabeta Samara in the second round. Ekholm played a close match but in the end lost 2:4.

Lea Rakovac could only keep up with Li Qian in the first set and lost 0:4.
Tetyana Bilenko played strongly and overcame Barbora Balazova 4:3. Unfortunately she lost in round 3 against Hu Melek who finally also won the Bronze Medal.

Gold went to Lie Jiao and the Silver Medal to Li Jie.

 

 

The newly established European Games showed to be a further sports highlight and were adopted very well by the athletes.

 

We are looking forward to welcome our WSA-players with their newly won medals back in Schwechat after a short summer-break .