At the onset of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in Busan 2024 the second-seeded men’s team from Germany launched their campaign successfully with a victory over the USA. Following their lead the fourth-seeded team from France secured a win against Denmark. Czechia defeated Madagascar and Hungary emerged victorious against Cuba. European champions Sweden triumphed over Slovakia while the eighth-seeded Portugal overcame Romania. Among the European teams Serbia surprised the odds and prevailed against Puerto Rico.
In the German team the record European champion Timo BOLL was absent and the Olympic record medalist Dimitrij OVTCHAROV arrived later and played with new equipment. However Germany’s men displayed no weaknesses in their first group match against the underdog USA. The German team secured a 3-0 victory against the 21st-ranked team in the world without dropping a game with Patrick FRANZISKA Dang QIU and Dimitrij OVTCHAROV leading the charge.
“The Americans are always tough opponents because they take high risks. They have an aggressive serve-return game. Therefore our 3-0 win and 9-0 were good victories ” said men’s national team coach Jörg ROSSKOPF. “We started the tournament well. Things are going well.”
The United States will have to proceed without their top player TTBL player Kanak JHA for another month. The 23-year-old World Championship quarter-finalist from Houston was suspended for a year by the US Anti-Doping Agency USADA after repeated missed doping controls. His suspension will end in mid-March. Timo BOLL suffering from an eye inflammation has not yet been able to travel to South Korea. He is undergoing treatment in Germany and has another doctor’s appointment on Friday.
“After that it will be decided whether he will still come or not. We have the option that he could still travel and play until the last day but if there has been no improvement of course it makes no sense. To clarify this he is still with the doctor today ” explained Coach ROSSKOPF after the USA game.
In another match the French team defeated Denmark 3-1. Felix LEBRUN won both his matches against Jonathan GROTH 3-2 and Anders LIND 3-0.
“We feel very good. Denmark is a strong opponent so we’re lucky to win today. The first match was very important. Alexis also pointed one and it was really important ” said Felix.
Alexis Lebrun beat Tobias RASMUSSEN 3-0 while LIND prevailed against Simon GAUZY in a full-distance encounter.
“We knew Denmark is a tough team to face and we took the match with the right mindset. They have 2 top players so we knew it would be tough but we handled it well ” explained GAUZY.
Serbia ranked at position no. 39 created an upset by beating the world’s no. 26 Puerto Rico 3-1. The backbone of the team’s success was Dimitrije LEVAJAC who defeated both Brian AFANDOR and Daniel GONZALEZ. Marko JEVTOVIC overcame Angel NARANJO while AFANDOR scored against Zolt PETE. Both JEVTOVIC and Pete are without rankings due to the long absence from the international scene.
“It was a close match with all players better ranked than us in the Puerto Rico team. We are only fifth in the group so we can only surprise our adversaries. It is good that we commenced our journey here with the win ” said LEVAJAC.
Czechia overcame Madagascar as Lubomir JANCARIK went the full distance to beat Jonathan NATIVEL and also prevailed against Fabio RAKOTOARIMANANA. Fabio beat Tomas POLANSKY while Jiri MARTINKO defeated Antoine RAZAFINARIVO.
Hungary beat Cuba in straight matches with Adam SZUDI Csaba ANDRAS and Tamas LAKATOS each securing one victory.
European champions Sweden needed only three matches to prevail against Slovakia. Anton KALLBERG overcame Lubomir PISTEJ Truls MOREGARDH beat Wang YANG and Mattias FALCK succeeded against Jakub ZELINKA.
Portugal also needed three matches to overcome Romania. Marcos FREITAS was stretched to the full distance against Eduardo IONESCU before Joao GERALDO and Tiago APOLONIA recorded victories against Ovidiu IONESCU and Iulian CHIRITA.
