“So they are set on a medal,” emphasized Stefan Fegerl, sports director of the Austrian Table Tennis Association (ÖTTV), this special feature for Europeans. Because as before, the World Cup medals are awarded via the Asians, especially the Chinese. Furthermore, Werner Schlager is the last non-Chinese individual world champion for men, the Paris triumph of the now 50-year-old Lower Austrian will be 20 years old next Thursday.
Since this moment of glory in Austria’s sport, the Chinese have opened a new series, and the men are now aiming for their tenth gold win in a row. After seven all-Chinese finals, Swedes Mattias Falck and Truls Möregardh at least made it into the finals in Budapest 2019 and Houston 2021. These went to Ma Long for the third time and to Fan Zhendong for the first time two years ago. If Ma wasn’t there almost two years ago, this time he’ll be there, as will Fan.
Levenko not there
Who the Austrians will oppose to this superiority has been determined based on the world rankings – with some exceptions, this was already the case in Houston. The national federations no longer have any influence on the nomination. The ÖTTV would have liked it that way, because Andreas Levenko has to stay at home despite his number three status in Austria. Because winning the catfish player of the WTT feeder in Antalya at the beginning of April brought him good points, but the World Cup field was already there.
At least the 24-year-old of Ukrainian descent has done well in the Olympic rankings, and of course this possibility generally also exists on the World Cup stage. For example, for the mixed by Polcanova with Robert Gardos, Austria’s number one for men and as such as Daniel Habesohn and David Serdaroglu also in individual use. The duo Polcanova/Gardos is number 15, the former European champion duo Gardos/Habesohn is also very well classified as number 9.
Liu Jia peilt Olympia an
Due to the qualification via the world ranking list, Liu Jia is also absent in Durban. The 41-year-old recently announced her return to club table tennis and her ambitions for her seventh Olympic appearance – but only in a team. If the qualification succeeds, two Paris tickets will be lost for the individual appearance, but there was still one place for “Susi”. In addition to Polcanova, Amelie Solja and Karoline Mischek, who compete in the World Championships, are also competing for the three Olympic tickets.
ÖTTV is allowed to nominate for the European Championships in September in Malmö – only the European team champions buy the Olympic ticket – and for the Team World Championships in Busan in South Korea in February, so Liu can be expected. The red-white-red World Cup participants, on the other hand, completed their preparation for a good week in Stockerau, although this camp was “disturbed” by the packed program such as the German Bundesliga semifinals. Habesohn lost there with Mühlhausen.
Youngsters as the main concern
Fegerl was the last of the more established players to drop out of the ÖTTV national team, and the youngsters Serdaroglu and Alexander Chen are now also in the World Cup team – together in the doubles field and Chen also with Mischek in mixed. After his sporting farewell at the 2021 Olympics, Fegerl became ÖTTV Vice President and, as of April 2022, also Sports Director. The 33-year-old is satisfied with what has been achieved since then, among other things, the organization of the European Championships in 2024 was brought to Linz.
According to Fegerl, the main concern of the association is the youngsters. In addition, the gap down through young team players like Levenko or Maciej Kolodziejczyk is not too big. Fegerl: “We have record numbers of participants in national tournaments. We have also included a medical pass with sports medical examinations.” And last week there was a VIP trophy for people from politics, business and sport in Burgenland, the other federal states are to follow.