13.09.10 The European Table Tennis Championships in Ostrava began with a small but successful ceremony. However, a few hours before the opening ceremony, there was a fire in CEZ Arena. Thanks to the fast action of the fire fighters who also assisted in venting the building, the competitions largely started on time and only in the side hall games had to be postponed as condensed water soaked the hall flooring. By afternoon everything was clear with only a slight smell of smoke remaining in the building. There were some great games, the Hungarian JOOLA team won against the Czech team 3-2 despite being 2:0 down. The German team also won three times. The women won 3:0 against injury-hit Austria and with a 3:1 victory over Croatia they reached the quarter finals. German national coach Jörg Roßkopf celebrated a 3:1 victory over a very strong Polish team at his EC premiere as coach. The performance of the young French team was very impressive, they beat Belarus with Samsonov playing, 3:2. The last singles match of Salifou, showed the strength of youth and in a top class match he demonstrated how to play against defence. In the CZE arena some 1000 spectators were highly entertained and saw a terrific match with the Czech men defeating Greece 3:0. The victory by Korbel over Kreanga was outstanding.
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