It is an opponent that the Hennebontais know well. Saarbrücken is expected Tuesday evening in Morbihan for the first leg of the quarter-finals of the Table tennis Champions League. The same opponent who, in a dry match, had put an end to the adventure of the Guard of the Vow at this stage of the competition last year. The same opponent, too, against whom the Morbihan table tennis players had won, in 2019, the ETTU Cup, the second European Cup after the Champions League precisely.
Four straight wins after a five-game losing streak
“They are slightly superior to us, they start as favorites“says Boris Abraham, the sporting director of GV Hennebont, recalling that Saarbrücken has also just won the German Cup. the Guardian of the Vow hopes to thwart the predictions in a season where she has already come a long way. She has just chained four consecutive victories in the last month in the French championship by going to win again last Friday at Pontoise-Cergy. “It is true that to prepare for a quarter-final of the Champions League, we could not ask for better“continues Boris Abraham.
The group stage of the Champions League allowed us to regain serenity
After five straight defeats at the start of the season, the table tennis players have rectified the situation. “The start of the season has been very difficult. We were a bit unlucky, and we started to doubt a lot. Having said that, the Champions League group stage did us good. It allowed us to find a little serenity“. And yet, here again, the Guardian of the Vow gave themselves a cold sweat losing from the start against Messina, supposed to be the weaker team. Before bringing down the strongest, Ekaterinburg, then confirming against to Wiener Neustadt to snatch his ticket for the quarter-finals, also counting on a favorable result between his opponents. “Then we managed to transpose that into the championship“likes Boris Abraham,”and today my team is in top form“.
After 2009, the GV is still chasing a Champions League semi-final
In front of its audience, the Guard of the Vow intends to gain the upper hand against the Germans. “If we can take an option in the first leg, that would be a good thing. But it will have to be 100%, and not 90%. If we want to hope to keep all our chances for the return match, we will have to have a great match.“warns the sporting director of the GV. Led by his trio Omar Assar, Cédric Nuytinck and Anders Lind, Hennebont has in a corner of the head the idea of joining the semi-finals played only once, it was in 2009. But first there is a round-trip quarter-final to play.