European Championships 2013
Men's Team Event

In 2010 the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) amended the rules for the 2013 (and all future) team events at the European Championships.

These revised rules introduced a new format for the biennial team events so that, in order to compete for the top prizes at the European Team Championships, teams have to qualify via a European league competition.

This new European league competition is played in the 2 years preceding each championships and the results from these league matches are used to allocate teams into the various divisions at the next European Championships - and also to determine the seeding positions.

There is a Men's Team Event and a Women's Team Event, and both are divided into 3 Divisions...

• Championships Division
• Challenge Division
• Standard Division

... and each member Association can only enter a maximum of one team in the Men's and/or one team in the Women's event with up to 5 players in a Men's team and up to 5 players in a Women's team.

But, only teams who qualify for the Championships Division can compete for the overall title of European Champions.

As this was the first occasion that the new Qualification League system was used, the initial Championships Division of the Men's Qualification League was composed of teams who finished in the top 10 places at the 2011 European Championships, together with the teams who finished first and second in the 2011 European Championships Challenge Division.

Two groups of 6 teams

These 12 teams were then drawn into 2 groups of 6 teams (Groups A and B) on the basis of a special seeding list prepared by the Ranking Committee of the ETTU.

So Groups A and B of the initial Championships Division in the Qualification League comprised the following teams:

• Group A: Germany, Portugal, Sweden, France, Spain, Serbia.
• Group B: Russia, Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Greece, Hungary.

League matches

In each group the 6 teams all played every other team once, in order to determine a final ranking order for each group.

The final group positions also determined the seeding positions for the competition proper.

Teams who finished in positions 1-5 in their groups qualified for the Championships Division of the competition proper.

The team who finished last in their group were relegated to the Challenge Division of the competition proper and the teams who finished 1 and 2 in the Challenge Division Qualification League were promoted to the Championships Division for the competition proper.

So who qualified?

So after all the league matches were played, Austria, Belarus, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Sweden qualified for the Championships Division of the competition proper and were joined by the Czech Republic and Poland who finished in the top 2 league places in the Challenge Division.

Hungary and Serbia were relegated to the Challenge Division and so will not be eligible to compete for the top prizes at the 2013 European Team Championships.

Although only teams in the Championships Division can compete for the top prizes, there were plenty of other Men's teams taking part in the 2013 European Team Championships.

In the Challenge Division the following Men's teams took part...

Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, England, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine.

And in the Standard Division the following Men's teams took part...

Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway and Switzerland.

The 2013 European Championships was played at the Multiversum-Arena and the Werner Schlager Academy which are under the same roof.

The equipment used was...

• Tables: Donic (blue)
• Balls: Nittaku (white)
• Flooring: Gerflor (red)

The 2013 European Team Championships was played using the progressive knockout system to determine the final position for every team, with the exception of a match for positions 3 and 4.

So, following the conclusion of the qualification league to determine which teams qualified for the Championships Division, the draw was made on 4 September 2013.

The top 2 teams from group A and B started in the quarter finals, whereas all the other teams started in the Preliminary round.

Men's Championships Division Draw

Teams consisted of 3 or 4 players.

Each match consisted of up to 5 singles (each the best of 5 games) and was played on one table.

Before the match starts, the team captains decided by lot the right to choose whether they were team A or team B.

They then nominated their 3 or 4 players to the referee and assigned a letter and number to each player (A1, A2, A3, A4 or B1, B2, B3, B4).

The order of play was...

1. A1 v B2
2. A2 v B1
3. A3 v B3
4. A1 v B1
5. A2 v B2

...and the matches end when a team has won 3 individual matches.

However, after the second singles, the fourth ranked player may replace player A1 or A2 (home team) or player B1 or B2 (away team). But this must be announced by the respective team captain to the referee before the start of the third singles.

The previous European Team Championships were held in 2011 in Poland and the men's team winners were Germany, and the runners-up were Sweden.

Championships Division

Preliminary Round

Friday 4 October 2013

Greece 3-1 Czech Republic

Belarus 3-1 Spain

Germany 3-0 Austria

Sweden 3-2 Poland

^ Top of page ^

Quarter Finals

Saturday 5 October 2013

Greece 3-1 Portugal

Belarus 3-1 Croatia

Germany 3-0 France

Russia 3-0 Sweden

^ Top of page ^

Semi Finals

Sunday 6 October 2013

Greece 3-2 Belarus

Germany 3-0 Russia

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Final

Monday 7 October 2013

Germany 3-1 Greece