The Swedish legends Waldner, Persson and Appelgren have played a major role in the success of the DONIC brand in the past and are still closely associated with our brand.
DONIC has supported young talents for several years already what is reflected in our claims: “CREATE SUCCESS”, “The Legends and the Future” or “Champions & Talents“.
Some of these young DONIC talents strive with big steps into the European elite. In this newsletter we would like to present you these young stars and their recent successes and good results at the European Team Championships.
European Team Championships: Success of the young sky riders
Gold, silver and bronze for the DONIC stars
The European Team Championships in the Romanian Cluj-Napoca have writen history as the continental event in which Europe’s youth stormed ahead on a broad front. Quite a number of promising young talents impressively proved that they are rightly regarded as big talents, first of all the Russian team which won the silver medal with the young DONIC stars Maxim Grebnev (Original True Carbon, Bluegrip C2), Vladimir Sidorenko (Original True Carbon, Bluestorm Pro) and old hand Kirill Skachkov (Skachkov Carbon, Bluegrip C2, Bluestorm Pro). After clear 3:0 winnings in the group matches against the Netherlands and France (here Sidorenko attracted attention with a 3:2 victory against former European Champion Emmanuel Lebesson), the Russian sky rider proved great fighting spirit and strong nerves in the quarter final against Austria.
After being 0:2 behind, the outsiders still managed to win 3:2 because Maxim Grebnev (against Daniel Habesohn) and Vladimir Sidorenko (against Robert Gardos) won their matches each in the decisive set. In the semi-finals then there was a big bang: 3:0 against Sweden who was the candidate for the title, although nobody had believed that to be possible. But Maxim Grebnevs 3:0 success over Anton Källberg who was still unbeaten in the German first national league opened the door for Russia to reach the final and Vladimir Sidorenko proved strong nerves when he perfectly completed the coup against Jon Persson with a 3:2 success (13:11 in the decisive set). DONIC legend Jörgen Persson, who has been the Swedish national coach for some years already, presented himself as a fair loser. “Russia’s very young players have always dared to go all out,” he praised, “the victory proves them right.” Even after the narrow 1:3 defeat in the final against Germany, the Russians still received high praise from the other coach: ” The Russians played very strong, fought unbelievably and challenged us fully,” attested national coach Jörg Roßkopf.
First of all, DONIC star Maxim Grebnev, who had put his team in the lead with a 3:1 opening win over Benedikt Duda and who had brought Patrick Franziska on the brink of defeat in a spectacular match at 2:3 (-11,-5,9,3,-13). “They played very strong and are certainly one of the upcoming teams in Europe,” said the visibly impressed Franziska afterwards. But the Russians were not the only young outsiders who attracted attention at this European Championships. Also, the young star from Denmark, Anders Lind (DONIC Original No.1 Senso, Bluegrip C2), celebrated his international breakthrough in Cluj-Napoca. Especially because of his outstanding performance, the Danes unexpectedly won the bronze medal. The 22-year-old DONIC star defeated three world-class players, Marcos Freitas from Portugal and Liam Pitchford and Paul Drinkhall from England, with 3:2 – even though he had only been back in training for a few weeks after months of injury.
Among the beaming winners of the European Championships was also a young woman from the DONIC team: Chantal Mantz (DONIC Original No.1 Senso, Bluegrip C2) clearly won three of her four singles at this tournament and lost only in the final against the Romanian world class player Daniela Dodean Monteiro with 2:3. The reward of her strong performance: Gold with the German women’s team!
DONIC congratulates its young sky stormers. We are proud of you!
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