Round 1 to be held from today September 26th to Friday. MAZE (Roskilde): “I’m ready and look forward for the Champions League season”. KUTERGINA (UMMC): “Each season our aims and goals are the same – to win”. ENDOLOV (Orenburg): “There have been significant changes in our team”. LUNDQUIST: “We are looking forward to be back in TTCLM”
New edition of the Table Tennis Champions League Men TTCLM will be held from today to Friday September 26-28th with two games in the opening day: K.S. Dekorglass Dzialdowo – SPG Walter Wels (Sep 26 18:00 CET) Roskilde Bordtennis BTK61 – K.S. Dartom Bogoria Grodzisk Mazowiecki (Sep 26 19:00 CET).
Borussia Dusseldorf No. 1 seed defends the title after its win against Fakel Gazprom Orenburg last spring after 6-3 aggregate score. These two sides are considered as in few previous seasons as top two favourites for the crown.
Timo BOLL & Co. opens new season this Thursday at home against 2017/18 semi-finalist Sporting Clube De Portugal as Coach Danny HEISTER stated:
“We are in pleasant anticipation to the start of new TTCLM season. We will start with a very interesting match against Sporting. It´s the first time that we play against the Portuguese team. They reached the semis last season and the will still have a strong team with ARUNA MONTEIRO and CARVALHO.”
Two-time TTCLM winner AS Pontoise Cergy travels to Czech Republic to meet TTC Ostrava 2016 – AS Pontoise Cergy in other Group A clash.
Actual ETTU Cup champion K.S. Dekorglass Dzialdowo from Poland hosts SPG Walter Wels in Group B while 2012 runner-up TTSC UMMC faces 2016/17 ETTU Cup winner and last season`s TTCLM newcomer Stella Sport La Romagne. Coach of Russian side Tatiana KUTERGINA explains:
“Each season our aims and goals are the same – to win! The roster of the team gives us a hope that our goals may come true. FANG Bo came back! If he is in the same physical shape as one and a half years ago we have a right to expect for much more. If he will be successful in matches others will follow him. I am very happy that Jonathan GROTH plays for UMMC I am sure he will do his best to help the team. As for our rivals last season we lost out to German team Saarbrucken 1:3 and went down. Broadly speaking European Champions League does not forgive mistakes. We have a lot of respect to every rival team. On 28 of September we have a match with French team Stella Sport La Romagne. Once we played with them but did not have a success. This match will be a challenge for us. It’s a very professional strong team. Such a great players as Adrian CRISAN and CHEN Tianyuan is going to come.”
Group C will see today`s clash between Roskilde Bordtennis BTK61 and K.S. Dartom Bogoria Grodzisk Mazowiecki. Roskilde`s team manager Allan BENTSEN has stressed:
“We look forward to start Champions League again after last year`s good results a quarter-final we hope that this season will at least as good. We are again in last seeding but hope to play some good matches and I know if my players are good then we can beat many teams.
Great Michael MAZE will do his best to help Roskilde to repeat its best result:
“Not the result I’d hoped for at the ITTFEuros2018… I had fun though and it really felt great to be back at the table – though struggled a bit with the body in the last match… Still progressing overall and I’ll now take a few days off to rest and then I’m ready and look forward for the Champions League season starts with Roskilde Bordtennis BTK61
The 2012 semi-finalist FC Saarbrücken Tischtennis faces former quarter-finalist Vaillante Sports Angers. Coach of host side Slobodan GRUJIC said:
“We enter new season with much younger team and our aim is second or third place in the group stage. We look forward to the opener against Angers and of course we are keen to show good play and win”.
Angers` Jens LUNDQUIST hopes that his side is able to secure its place among the best eight clubs:
“We are looking forward to be back in CL! Even if the group is strong I think we have a good chance to reach quarterfinal. The first match in Saarbrücken will be difficult especially with Patrick FRANZISKA in a great form. But we come from a good start in Pro A (3-0 against St Denis) and if we can keep that level it’s not easy to defeat us.”
Four-time TTCLM winner Orenburg hosts newcomer from Germany Post SV Mühlhausen as Coach Vladimir ENDOLOV states:
“We congratulate everyone on the start of the new season in the European Champions League! All TTCLM teams have high-class players. This means that we will face a hard and intense struggle in this season. There have been significant changes in our team: instead of JUN Mizutani we invited two new high-class players: Marcos FREITAS (Portugal) and YAN An (China). We hope that with such players and our leaders: Dimitrij OVTCHAROV and Vladimir SAMSONOV our team will be the winner in the TTCLM season 2018-2019. We are quite sure that the upcoming match with the German club Post SV Mühlhausen will be interesting for the audience and tense for both teams.”
Post SV Mühlhausen`s manager Thomas STECHER explains:
“The match against Fakel Gazprom Orenburg will be the first match ever in the TTCLM in the history of Post Mühlhausen. For us it is a great pleasure to play against the best clubs in Europe and especially against Orenburg one of the best table-tennis teams in the world. We are curious about the Russian Federation and we will enjoy the journey very much.”
Mühlhausen hopes that his players will continue good shape from the recent 2018 LIEBHERR ITTF European Championships in Alicante where Ovidiu IONESCU won silver in the Men`s Singles while Daniel HABESOHN took the Men`s Doubles gold with Robert GARDOS.
“We are looking forward to the Champions-League-Match against Orenburg because we played very well at the European Championships” emphasized HABESOHN. “We have a lot of self-confidence now and we will try to challenge them. Of course they are favourites but we are fighters and we will give everything to may cause a big surprise.”
Coach Erik Schreyer added:
“For the start in our first season in TTCLM we could not have get any better draw than Orenburg. In Alicante in the Quarterfinals of the European Champs our player Ovidiu IONESCU defeated Vladimir SAMSONOV. Maybe he is able to repeat this victory on Friday and also we hope that we will be in the position to bring the favourite club into trouble. But also it is clear that we have to go over the limit to show a great match.”
The 16-year-old Truls MOREGARD from Eslovs had an impressive TTCLM debut last year. Now he is ready to get bigger role in his side:
“This is not my first season as I played last one. Last season was great experience for me. We have very tough group I think. Orenburg is very strong Hennebont as well Mühlhausen is playing very good in Bundesliga right now. It will be hard matches and I hope that many people will come to watch. I think chances are very good against Hennebont. “
2018/19 TTCLM Round 1
Group A
TTC Ostrava 2016 – AS Pontoise Cergy (Sep 27 18:00 CET)
Borussia Düsseldorf – Sporting Clube De Portugal (Sep 27 19:00 CET)
Group B
K.S. Dekorglass Dzialdowo – SPG Walter Wels (Sep 26 18:00 CET)
TTSC UMMC – Stella Sport La Romagne (Sep 28 16:00 CET)
Group C
Roskilde Bordtennis BTK61 – K.S. Dartom Bogoria Grodzisk Mazowiecki (Sep 26 19:00 CET)
FC Saarbrücken Tischtennis – Vaillante Sports Angers TT (Sep 28 19:30 CET)
Group D
TTC Fakel Gazprom – Post SV Mühlhausen (Sep 28 14:00 CET)
Eslovs Ai Bordtennis – G.V. Hennebont T.T. (Sep 28 18:30 CET)
More information: here
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