Benedek Oláh took second place in the WTT tournament in Slovenia. In terms of an Olympic place, success was valuable.
Finland’s number one table tennis player Benedek Oláh lost to a Korean in the finals of the WTT Feeder competition played in Slovenia For Daesong Cho.
Cho won the final 3–1 (11–9, 9–11, 11–3, 11–3). The Korean is 44th in the world ranking. Oláh’s ranking is 149th.
Oláh beat Luxembourg in the semi-final Luka Mladenovic (ranking 152) straight in three sets 12–10, 11–6 and 11–8.
The place in the final match was Oláh’s first career in the current WTT series.
– I’m actually very surprised. I played the early games very well. I got an opponent in the semifinals that I knew my game would work well, Oláh says from Slovenia.
– In the final, the guy just played so well, and I couldn’t find any answer on how to serve.
Oláh laughs that he actually lost the final for the first time in his career. It has been a while since the last final at such a high level, as in 2016 Oláh took the World Tour tournament victory at the Nigerian Open Championship tournament.
– But it’s a shame that these competitions just cost more when you made it to the final. I received 300–400 euros in prize money, the costs came to 1,400 euros. We didn’t come here for the money, but here we are still hunting for an Olympic place, Oláh says.
A return to the Olympic arenas?
Oláh became the first Finnish table tennis player to play at the Olympics in Rio 2016. Oláh was left out of the Tokyo 2021 Games, which was a bitter disappointment.
Oláh says that an Olympic spot would require another such tournament success. Now his ranking is closer to the top 100, when the top 80 get to the games through the ranking. 86 table tennis players, both women and men, can make it to the Olympics.
Oláh’s April continues in Germany with the Düsseldorf WTT Feeder competition and the French League matches.
The European continental qualifiers will be played in mid-May in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Sarajevo, five Olympic spots are up for grabs for singles. The rest of those going to Paris will make it through the world ranking on June 18.
Now Oláh has reason to be satisfied in any case.
– Yes, a very big success. I’m really happy with how I played. Appropriately relaxed at last. Since the WC, there has been good concentration and the game has been rolling for a long time.
A little over a week ago, Oláh won his 12th Finnish championship in Tampere in the SC competitions.
It should also be mentioned that reaching Oláh from Slovenia was a slightly more challenging episode this time.
– The phone broke on Wednesday. I tried to fix it here, but I couldn’t really, since it’s Easter. The antenna is broken, so WhatsApp and calls don’t work, but I can use wifi.
For the interview, Oláh had finally borrowed the phone from his girlfriend.