European Championships 2013
Women'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 Women'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: Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Belarus, France, Croatia.
• Group B: Germany, Romania, Spain, Russia, Czech Republic, England.

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, Belarus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia and Spain qualified for the Championships Division of the competition proper and were joined by Ukraine who finished top of Group A in the Challenge Division.

In addition, Turkey (who finished top of Group B in the Challenge Division) played off against the host nation Austria (who did not qualify automatically).

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

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

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

Bulgaria, Croatia, England, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.

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

Azerbaijan, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Kosovo, Norway, Scotland, Switzerland and Wales.

The 2013 European Championships were 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 were 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.

However, Turkey had to play off against the host nation Austria, for a place in the Preliminary round.

Women'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 were 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 nominate their 3 or 4 players to the referee and assign 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 match ends 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 women's team winners were the Netherlands, and the runners-up were Romania.

Championships Division

Preliminary Play-Off Match

Friday 4 October 2013

Austria 3-0 Turkey

^ Top of page ^

Preliminary Round

Friday 4 October 2013

Romania 3-2 Ukraine

Poland 3-2 France

Czech Republic 3-2 Spain

Austria 3-1 Netherlands

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Quarter Finals

Saturday 5 October 2013

Romania 3-0 Hungary

Russia 3-1 Poland

Czech Republic 3-2 Belarus

Germany 3-0 Austria

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Semi Finals

Sunday 6 October 2013

Romania 3-0 Russia

Germany 3-1 Czech Republic

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Final

Monday 7 October 2013

Germany 3-1 Romania