Ekaterina Borovok won silver of the Open Table Tennis Championship in Belgium

The Belgian Open Table Tennis Championship ended in Pepinster on September 20. The Belarusian team not only reached the decisive stages, but also won a medal, the correspondent of the Minsk-Novosti news agency reports.

The main result was the silver of the Belarusian tennis player Ekaterina Borovok in the women's tournament. Our athlete held the competition confidently and reached the final without suffering a single defeat during the first four matches.

In the semifinals, Ekaterina met with the representative of Ukraine Veronika Vasilenko. Belarus immediately seized the initiative and finished the meeting in three games - 3:0 (14:12, 11:8, 11:4).

In the final, Catherine’s rival was French Anais Salpen, who takes 281st place in the current world ranking of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF / WTT) in women’s singles. The match turned out to be difficult: both athletes play with their left hand, and the fate of the third game was decided literally at the last draws. As a result, the representative of France won with the score 3:0 - 5:11, 5:11, 10:12.

Thus, E. Borovok took second place and became the silver medalist of the Belgian Open Championship. This result looks especially symbolic against the background of the return of our compatriots to full-fledged international performances. In July 2026, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) returned Belarusian athletes the right to participate in competitions with full-fledged national symbols.

Also distinguished 19-year-old Belarusian tennis player Nikon Shutov, who made it to the semifinals of the tournament. In the fight for a ticket to the decisive match, he was confronted by the representative of Germany Lleyton Ullmann, who occupies the 441st place in the world ranking. Belarus lost in three games - 0:3 (8:11, 8:11, 6:11).

After the semifinals, Nikon continued to fight for the final position in the standings. Belarusian athletes from different countries and with markedly different positions in the world classification. The first was the representative of the Netherlands Gabrielius Camara, who is 266th in the world. He was stronger in this meeting - 3:0 (11:1, 11:8, 11:8). But the final match of the tournament gave a real five-set drama. Rival Nikon was the Swiss Lovis Vogler, who is on the 858th position in the ITTF ranking. Belarus confidently began the meeting and took the first two games - 11:9, 11:5. It seemed that the advantage was already on Nikon’s side, but the opponent managed to turn the tide of the game. The third game remained for Lovis - 9:11, and in the fourth set, the Swiss snatched victory only in the very end - 13:11. The decisive fifth set also passed in a stubborn struggle, but again the minimum advantage was on the opponent's side - 11:9. The result is 2:3 (11:9, 11:5, 9:11, 11:13, 9:11). Thus, Nikon Schutov took sixth place.

In total, six Belarusian athletes took part in the competition. Among women, Elizaveta Timoshkova took 7th place, Ulyana Meshchanskaya - 8th. In the men's tournament, Georgy Kunats is located on the 7th position, and Daniil Vitorsky completed his performance in 11th place.

The international tournament cycle for the Belarusian team does not end there. The same delegation will travel to Linz, Austria, where the WTT Feeder Linz 2026 World Series tournament will take place from 23 to 27 September.

Competitions in Austria will be the next stage in the preparation of the national team for one of the main starts of autumn - the European Championship in Ljubljana (Slovenia), which will be held from 11 to 18 October.

Photo by Belgium Table Tennis Federation