by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

Both outfits commenced matters as the top seeds, both justified that billing by recording two-nil wins against second seeded adversaries at the final hurdle.

Thomas Brüchle and Thomas Schmidberger beat Ukraine’s Vasyl Petruniv and Oleksandr Yezyk; Abdullah Ozturk and Nesim Turan overcame the French combination of Florian Merrien and Maxime Thomas.

The win meant that Thomas Schmidberger completed the double and Maxime Thomas fell just one step short. Five days earlier, Thomas Schmidberger had won Men’s Singles Class 3, Maxime Thomas had enjoyed the same success in Men’s Singles Class 4.

Success for Germany but there was also defeat and a surprise defeat; top seeds in Class 5, at the final hurdle Valentin Baus and Jan Guertler suffered a two-one reverse at the hands of the French pairing comprising Alexandre Delarque and Nicolas Savant-Aira. Furthermore, it meant that the title won in Vejle was surrendered; on that occasion Valentin Baus had won in partnership with Joerg Didiuon and Selcuk Cetin.

Meanwhile, in the one remaining Men’s Team wheelchair event, it was success for Slovakia.

Jan Riapos and Martin Ludrovsky combined to win Men’s Team Class 1-2. The win was a degree of compensation; at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, competing in the same category, they had finished in fourth place, one step short of a precious medal.

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