by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

In the final, the Swedes meet the husband and wife pairing of Portugal’s João Monteiro and Romania’s Daniela Monteiro-Dodean. The no.4 seeds, they overcame Ovidiu Ionescu and Bernadette Szocs, the no.10 seeds and like Daniela Monteiro-Dodean from Romania, in straight games result was the outcome (11-9, 11-6, 11-8).

Defeat for Aleksandar Karakasevic and Lithuania’s Ruta Paskauskiene means that alongside the combination of Stanislav Gomozkov and Zoja Rudnova; they remain the pairing to have been crowned European Mixed Doubles champion more times than any other combination.

They have won on four occasion; they won for the first time in Bremen in 2000; later they succeeded in 2005 in Aarhus and two years later in 2009 when the event was held as separate entity in 2009 in Subotica and not in Stuttgart where later in the year the main event was staged.

Meanwhile from an earlier generation, representing the Soviet Union, Stanislav Gomozkov and Zoja Rudnova succeeded in four consecutive editions. In an age when the tournament was held in alternate years to the World Championships; they won in Lyon in 1968, in Moscow in 1970 before succeeding two years later in Rotterdam in 1972 and in Novi Sad in 1974.

Notably both Aleksandar Karakasevic, now 40 years old and Ruta Paskauskiene, 39 years of age have both indicated that they intend to retire later this year but I wonder.

One more try for a medal next year at the 2017 World Championships and maybe at the 2018 European Championships?