by Simon Daish
Park Ganghyeon was the hero for the hosts prevailing in both of his fixtures against Artur Abusev (11-4, 11-6, 11-6) and Jonathan Groth (11-8, 11-6, 7-11, 11-3), adding to Adam Szudi’s victory over Ilya Zhidkov (11-4, 11-9, 8-11, 11-4) to pull SPG Walter Wels back into qualification contention.
Success for K.S. Dekorglass Dzialdowo against Stella Sport La Romagne in the other Group B encounter has moved the Polish outfit to within a point of leaders TTSC UMMC with just two points separating top and bottom spot in the group.
Borussia Düsseldorf faced a major test in its fourth Group A match with TTC Ostrava 2016 pushing the defending champions right down to the wire.
Victories for Tomas Tregler and Simon Belik in their respective encounters with Anton Källberg (11-8, 5-11, 11-3, 9-11, 14-12) and Omar Assar (12-10, 11-7, 5-11, 11-9) helped the Czech team establish a two games to one lead. However, two wins from Timo Boll and a four games success for Anton Källberg against Petr Korbel in the decider (11-8, 11-6, 6-11, 11-8) handed Borussia Düsseldorf an important 3-2 away victory.
The two other sides contesting Group A also played out an entertaining duel with a brace from Mattias Falck proving crucial as AS Pontoise-Cergy saw off Sporting Clube de Portugal 3-2.
In the previous phase of group stage fixtures, Angers Vaillante TT posted a comfortable win against K.S. Dartom Bogoria Grodzisk Mazowiecki but on match day four the outcome was reversed with successful outings from Panagiotis Gionis, Kaii Yoshida and Pavel Sirucek helping the Polish team to a 3-2 win. The other Group C encounter saw FC Saarbrücken prevail over Roskilde Bordtennis BTK61 by a 3-0 score-line.
TTC Fakel Gazprom Orenburg registered yet another 3-0 victory in Group D, condemning Swedish opponents Eslovs Ai Bordtennis to its fourth straight defeat in the process while there was a first win for French side G.V. Hennebont with Liam Pitchford, Cedric Nuytinck and Fan Shengpeng proving too strong for Post SV Mühlhausen.