Ochsenhausen's Simon Gauzy before EM: "Do not know what top can mean".

At the European Championships in Munich (until August 21), numerous stars from the German Table Tennis League (TTBL) will compete. One of the best-known participants is the French top player Simon Gauzy. The number one of the TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen has a lot planned for the title fights six years after his entry into the European singles final in Budapest, despite recent mixed performances.

For Simon Gauzy, European singles championships have not been under a good star lately. After reaching the final of the 2016 championships in Budapest, the TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen star from the German Table Tennis Bundesliga (TTBL) was always eliminated before the round of 16 in both 2018 in Alicante and last year in Warsaw. At the European Championships in Munich (August 13-21), however, the Frenchman wants to attack again and aim for a top ranking.

"I want to go to the top, but I don't know what top can mean. But in any case it should be on top," described the 27-year-old in an interview for the homepage of the European federation ETTU his ambitions for the European Championships on the Isar.

However, Gauzy, who recorded a 12:9 record for Ochsenhausen in the last TTBL season, does not want to set a medal as a concrete goal for the mini-Olympics at the European Championships: "The level in Europe is very high. From the first round on, practically every player is hard to beat."

"The level keeps rising".

Gauzy names a TTBL quintet with Swedish World Championship runner-up Truls Moregard (TTC Neu-Ulm), Patrick Franziska, Europe Top 16 winner Darko Jorgic (both 1. FC Saarbrücken TT), former title holder Dimitrij Ovtcharov (TTC Neu-Ulm) and German champion Dang Qiu (Borussia Düsseldorf) as the first contenders for the European singles crown. "These," says the Europar ranking twelfth, "are the best at the moment. But still, many are capable of beating them, and it would be great to be able to be part of that group."

Looking back on his European Championship success six years ago in Hungary, Gauzy believes the momentum at the time was an important factor. "I was younger, and my own expectations and the expectations in the environment were not as high because of that. Besides, I was able to play at the best level I could at the time in Budapest," the right-hander said.

Since Budapest 2016, however, European table tennis has developed enormously, Gauzy explained further: "The level is constantly developing upwards. Players are investing more and more. As a result, the level keeps going up as well - but that's good for table tennis in Europe and table tennis in general."