With a confident win against Portugal, both the German women’s and men’s teams moved into the final of the European Table Tennis Championships.
Thanks to their 3-0 win in the semifinals against Portugal, the German women also remained without in their fifth tournament game on Saturday (September 16th, 2023). matchloss. European Championship runner-up Nina Mittelham, world number ten Ying Han and former European vice-champion Xiaona Shan scored points without losing a set.
In their 15th European Championship final on Sunday (2 p.m.), the selection of the German Table Tennis Association will face their long-term rivals Romania, who beat France 3-1 in the second semi-final.
Chance for revenge after defeat in Krakow
The final offers for the DTTBteam the opportunity to revenge for losing the final at the European Games in Krakow last June. In the previous four European Championship tournaments since 2015, the German team retained the upper hand in all three final duels.
German men follow suit
In the men’s semi-final in Malmö, Benedikt Duda (TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt), Timo Boll and Kay Stumper (both Borussia Düsseldorf) won 3-1 against Portugal on Saturday. The final opponent will be determined in the evening between hosts Sweden and France.
This time the 20-year-old stumper played an important role, coming into the team for Ricardo Walther (ASV Grünwettersbach) after the narrow 3-2 win in the quarter-finals against Croatia. When the score was 1:1, he was already 0:2 sets behind against Joao Geraldo and won this key match 3:2.
Boll with a 3-0 win
Record European champion Boll then made everything clear with a 3-0 win against Portugal’s number one Marcos Freitas. The 42-year-old Boll lost his first game 1:3 against Tiago Apolonia.
The Germans will be competing in this tournament without their three top players Dang Qiu, Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Patrick Franziska. Four of the five players who won the European Championship final against Germany 3-1 in 2014 were still with the Portuguese. However, the Germans only lost two of the last eleven finals. On Sunday they want to win their tenth European title with the team.