Mattias Falck: "We have a powerful team"

Both the Swedish men's and women's national teams are top-ranked in their respective teams in the Team European Championship, which begins today. Each group consists of three teams - only one goes further from the group.

On the men's side, Mattias Falck returned Swedish table tennis to the world top when he was in the World Cup final this spring. He shoulders the Swedish team that has the final goal.

Mattias Falck has had a fantastic year with the World Cup silver in April as the biggest individual success. It has also affected the world ranking. After the latest compilation that came on August 1, the 27-year-old is in seventh place, two placements better than last month. In addition, he is one in Europe.

The ranking is the best Swedish since August 2002 when JO Waldner was ranked seventh in the world.

- It is clear that both JO and Jörgen (Persson) grew up watching TV. It gets a little special when it was JO who was last up there and that you are there yourself now. That's what they were trained for and had as their goal, to be at the top of the world and to be mentioned among their names, Falck tells SVT Sport.

Worldwide is Xu Xin from China.

Kristian Karlsson is ranked as Sweden's second best table tennis player. But the 28-year-old was injured during a match in the Czech Republic last week and is a question mark. He can miss the European Championships.

- My hobby guess is that it will be very difficult, says associate captain Peter Blomquist to TT.

Karlsson is ranked second in Sweden and ranked 25th in the world.

- Although Kristian does not get started in the worst case, we have a powerful team, says Mattias Falck to Radio Sports.

- Germany may be seen as favorites but we go for gold.

The Swedish men took their latest gold in 2002.

Also on the women's side, the Swedish team enters the championship with faith in games for the medals. Sweden's ladies were impressed with the qualification.

The big star is Matilda Ekholm. She has played a major role in the Swedish national team since 2005. She is 37 and is ranked as one of the world's 25 best players.

The European Championship starts with a group game where the winner in the three-team group goes to the quarterfinals, and the others leave. Sweden is top ranked in the group after a fine qualifying game.

In the same group are tough opponents Poland. Poland has a higher position on the world rankings, but made a weaker qualification. Matilda Ekholm optimistic for the championship:

"Of course we should go for a medal," she tells Radio Sports. Especially Linda Bergström has taken a lot of steps lately. If I play at my standard level or a little better, and Linda plays well, we have absolute medal chances, says Ekholm.