Photo: Bartuschek

The World Championships in Suzhou goes on with big steps. The first surprising results have already overcome the table tennis world. Dimitrij Ovtcharov who was supposed to be one of the candidates for a medal was defeated in the second round of the tournament.

Also the WSA team has lost some players in the first rounds. All in all our athletes performed very well and showed their future potential. Especially for younger players like Kirill Gerassimenko and Tamolwan Khetkuen this World Championships were a great chance to gain more experience for the future. The players of the WSA women team, SVNÖ Ströck, performed

very good in the second round. Both Matilda Ekholm and Tetyana Bilenko, the most experienced players, could win their matches. Especially Tetyana Bilenko demonstrated her good condition against the Japanese top player Ai Fukuhara in a straight 4-0 match. Ekholm won against the South Korean Lee Zion with 4-1 games.

Having a look at the men's single competition the tournament ended for Mihai Bobocica (ITA) after a 0-4 defeat against Tang Peng. In the duel of the national team mates Stefan Fegerl could beat his team mate Robert Gardos with 4-2 games. The third Austrian Daniel Habesohn faced the defensive specialist Joo Sae Hyuk from South Korea, who did not let Habesohn win a single game. In the meanwhile Chen Weixing survived the "pimple duel" against Japanese Yuto Muramatsu with 4-0 games.

Also Lubomir Jancarik (CZE) could not repeat his strong performance like in the first round of the tournament and had to face defeat against Jonathan Groth (DEN). Therefore the Portuguese players Joao Monteiro and Marcos Freitas performed very well. "Monti" did not waste time and energy and finished his match against the Swede Kristian Karlsson in four straight games. In the beginning it seemed that Marcos Freitas on the other side had some problems with his opponent Masaki Yoshida, but then he found his strength again and could in a 4-2 match.

Finally Alexander Shibaev could also proceed in the next round when he won against the Indian player Soumyajit Ghosh.

Tomorrow the round of 32 starts and we look forward to exciting and high-class table tennis matches!