The Team Breno, with Romain Zaleski, Massimo Lanzarotti, Andrea Manno and Maurizio Pattacini won the International Teams of Montegrotto. Second came Austria, with Jan Fucik, Gunter Purkathofer, Tino Terraneo and Arno Lindermann. Third was Goraco: Stefano Szenberg, Miroslav Milaszewski, Zbigniew Macior and Jerzy Michalek.
Congratulations to these teams, but it must be underlined that there were not Lavazza, neither Monaco, the Pole, the Bulgarian, the Hungarian, the British, neither those teams that often come to our international events. Many went in America for Spring Championships, therefore it was wrong the date, and the displacement from the first to the third week of March.
But not only were missing great champions: also weren’t Giacomo, Paolo, Stefania, Viola, Marco, that is the intermediate players, the friends we meet daily in our clubs. Is it the crisis? Also it is, but look at these figures: the tourneys One Hundred in Two and Mixed-Ladies have lost the 17 per cent of participants; the Open has been more lucky, only -12 per cent. But look at the disaster of Teams: -31 per cent! Last year there were eighty-four teams – and were already fewer than 2012’s – and are only fifty-eight today!
It is not the economic crisis alone which is quenching our finest team events; there was not crisis when disappeared Venezia (2008), and four months ago it happened to Milano, and now Montegrotto. In my opinion, we have too many championships and pair tourneys, and people cannot longer afford the more difficult teams, more difficult to play and to organize.
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Paolo Enrico Garrisi