From Scotland to Russia: ETTU Cup starts

New season in largest ETTU club competition is about to start. The list of clubs playing this season is impressive – total of 78 are listed . In Men’s ETTU Cup top eight seeds are: Polish Dartom Bogoria Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Germany’s TTC Zugbrücke G,

New season in largest ETTU club competition is about to start. The list of clubs playing this season is impressive – total of 78 are listed .

In Men’s ETTU Cup top eight seeds are: Polish Dartom Bogoria Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Germany’s TTC Zugbrücke Grenzau E.V, Russia’s TTC Magistral Moscow French Stella Sport La Romagne and Istres Tennis De Table, Turkish Istanbul BBSK, Belgium’s Logis Auderghem TT and Croatia’s Stk Dr. Casl. However, we will wait a while to see them. Biggest guns will start the competition on 6th to 8th December in third round, first of knock out stage.

This weekend the first round of group stages are on the schedule. In Men’s ETTU Cup the fights in 8 groups with four clubs in each will open the competition. Teams ranked at positions one, two and three will progress to the next stage.

New name on the list is Romania’s Pristavu Camplung. They will be hosts in Group 1. Gabriel POSTOACA, Alin SPELBUS, Alexandru MANOLE, Dan ZARNESCU, Florin SPELBUS and Nicolae DINCA will face great challenge from guest from Italian ASD Marcozzi Cagliari, Spanish DKV Borges Vall and Turkey’s Sistem Reklam Sport Külübü.

Well known club in ETTU Cup competition, Czech’s Sokol Kraluv Dvur, will host Danish OB-Bordtennis, Belgium’s Sokah Hoboken and Goodgate Etha Engomi of Cyprus. This season for Czech team will play Radek KOSTAL, David STEPANEK, Jan URBANEK, Lubos VORLICEK, Lubomir VCELICKA, Tomas KOPRIVA. Last season they started from Round two, clinched top place, before they lost their duel against Istanbul BTSK in Round three.

In Group 3 Luxembourg’s DT Diddeleng will host Yroni Givatayim from Israel, Dutch TTC-FVT/Visser-V/D Ham-Rotterdam and Turkey’s TED Sport Club. First of three clubs coming from Luxembourg in men’s ETTU Cup has very strong line up with YANG Min, Gilles MICHELY, Christian KILL, Mike BAST, Fabien SIMON, Andy CATTAZZO. Last year Diddeleng played in first and second round of group stages.

Another Luxembourg’s representative DT Echternach will host Danish Roskilde Bordtennis, BKT61, Stolnoteniski Klub Mostar from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenian NTK Ilirija Ljubljana. Traian CIOCU, Evgeni DADECHIN, Laurent BODEN, Jeff HOUDREMONT, Paulo De JESUS, Danel WILLEMS are on Echternach’s list of players. last year club failed to survive opening stage of the competition.

In Group 5 Scotland’s Drumchapel Glasgow TTC awaits TT Sud Telecom Virton of Belgium, UTTF Raiffeisen Ligist of Austria and STK Aladza-A from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Howieson Craig, Scott BARTON, Christopher MAIN, Richard MAIN, Craig HARDIE, Terry MCLERNON will play for Scotland’s team.

Like last year Serbia’s STK Banat Zrenjanin will be the host of one of the groups. Swiss TTC Rio-Star Muttenz, Portugal’s Grupo Desp. Do Centro Soc. do Juncal and Spanish Irun Leka Enea will play there. Serbia’s team is different from last year. Valentin NAD NEMEDI, Boris MIHAILOVIC, Ilija MAJSTOROVIC, Uros GORDIC Dusan BUCAN, Zoran MULIC are the names of the members of Serbia’s champion. They played in two rounds of Groups stages last year.

Mavrommatis Ayiou Pavlou from Cyprus will host Grupo Desportivo from Portugal, CTM San Sebastian de los Reyes from Spain and Tischtennis SportKlub Wien from Austria. Brothers Marios YIANGOU and Yiangos YIANGOU are again on the list of players alongside their father Christos YIANGOU, Ognyan SERAFIMOV, Konstantinou SOTIRIS and Kapris MINAS.

In last, Group 8, TT Sport Club “Elem” of Russia with Vildan GADIEV, Arten VNUKOV, Ilya ZHIDKOV, Konstantin CHERNOV, Kirill SHVETC and Nikita YARUSHIN will host Croatia’s Libertas Marinkolor Dubrovnik, Spanish Arteal Tenis de Mesa and DT Recken from Luxembourg.

In the 2nd round (19th -20th October) at the top of 8 groups in second stage are: Russia’s Baikal, Polish “Olimpia-Unia” Grudziadz, Spanish Cajasur Priego T.M, French Entente Pongiste Issenne, Dutch Enjoy & Deploy Taverzo, SF SKK EL Nino Praha and KST Robot Metalfin Hustopecefrom Czech Republic and TTSC “NORD” from Ukraine.

Title holders are UMMC. Russia’s club beat Dartom Bogoria Grodzisk from Poland to clinch the title in the ETTU Cup last year.