Russian champions Primorye Vladivostok dusted of the cobwebs after two defeats in 2016 & 2017 to win the European club championships in Bialystok this afternoon their fifth title since 2012.
It was evident after day 1 that the Russians were hot favourites this year after strengthening the singles elements of their team line up and the dilution of their major opponent’s.
In today’s final French champions BC Chambly Oise put up a stern fight to the mighty Russians but it proved futile and Primorye ran out 3-1 winners in the final.
The opening mixed doubles was also going to be a key match and new pair of Vladimir Ivanov and Alina Davletova took the match in two games beating Lorraine Baumann and Quentin Vincent.
Men’s singles followed and Korean Gi Hun Han saved his best performance of the week for the most important match beating Eetu Heino after the Finn had brought a 100% win record into today’s final.
Soraya DeVisch Eijbergen (pictured above) completed what was an unofficial MVP performance getting a point on the board for Chambly beating Byeol Nim Lee in two games. The Dutch ace walks away with the impressive record of 8 matches played with 8 wins. A phenomenal record by any standard.
- I had a good week here in Poland. I enjoyed the experience and of course to win all my matches makes me very happy. I feel at home in this team and we proved even with such a small team this week that we are still close to winning.
In the end when you have Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov on your team it is almost a formality that a point will be taken and in this case the point was the winning point for Primorye. The Russian superstars beat Robert Mateusiak and Quentin Vincent in two games to win the title for Primorye and make them the most successful team in the modern history of the tournament.
- To win here after loosing the last two years is very special. We wanted this more than in previous years and we will want to come back again and defend this title said Ivan Sozonov after the victory.
#ECC18 RESULTS
WINNERS: PRIMORYE VLADIVOSTOK (Russia)
RUNNERS UP: BC CHAMBLY OISE (France_
THIRD PLACE: CALVI NETWORKS BC MILANO (Italy) & ISSY LES MOLINEAUX (France)