The German men’s national table tennis team has reached the final of a European team championship for the twelfth time in a row.
In the semi-finals in Malmö, Benedikt Duda (TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt), Timo Boll and Kay Stumper (both Borussia Düsseldorf) won 3-1 against Portugal on Saturday. The final opponent will be determined in the evening between hosts Sweden and France.
This time the 20-year-old stumper played an important role, coming into the team for Ricardo Walther (ASV Grünwettersbach) after the narrow 3-2 win in the quarter-finals against Croatia. When the score was 1:1, he was already 0:2 sets behind against Joao Geraldo and won this key match 3:2.
Boll with a 3-0 win
Record European champion Boll then made everything clear with a 3-0 win against Portugal’s number one Marcos Freitas. The 42-year-old Boll lost his first game 1:3 against Tiago Apolonia.
The Germans will be competing in this tournament without their three top players Dang Qiu, Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Patrick Franziska. Four of the five players who won the European Championship final against Germany 3-1 in 2014 were still with the Portuguese. However, the Germans only lost two of the last eleven finals. On Sunday they want to win their tenth European title with the team.
