Kalinikos Kreanga, the Irrepressible Greek

Kalinikos Kreanga grew up in Romania during his childhood. Kreanga was born on March 8, 1972 in Bistrita, Romania. He started playing table tennis at the age of 7 in Romania. However, he returned to native Greece and had been playing for Greece from the age of 17. He is now living in Alimos, Athens, Greece. He is called a backhand specialist par excellence. His strength is in looping the ball with his backhand from any position. If hit properly, opponents would find it nearly impossible to counter the brutal speed and heavy spin on the ball. Kreanga says this stroke comes naturally to him, though the stroke is a very unique one. Currently, Kreanga is ranked fifteenth in the world and fourth in Europe. In Greece, he is the number one player. He uses the shakehand grip and his backhand topspin is executed with extreme power and speed.

His highest moment of glory came, when he was placed third in men’s World Championship held in Paris in 2003. Kreanga believes in keeping himself fully fit. During normal times, he devotes 6 to 7 hours a day in training session. During competitions, he spends at least 4 hours in training.

Kreanga is of the opinion that table tennis needs more sponsors for it to develop as a favorite sport like football, cricket, tennis, gold, baseball, etc. That would also increase the competitiveness of the sport, according to him. He was the men’s singles runner-up in 2004 World Cup. He won the Santiago Open Championship in 2004. He was also the singles and doubles champion in 2004 St. Petersburg Open. In the same year, he won the doubles championship in Qatar Open. In 2002, he was the singles champion in Kobe Open.

In 2003 ITTF Men’s World Cup held in Jaingyin, Kreanga was up against the formidable Chinese Ma Lin in the finals. In the previous 7 encounters between them, Kreanga had never been able to beat Ma Lin. This was the first major international even after the ITTF introduced reforms with bigger ball, no-hide service, and 11-point system. Ma Lin had beaten world No. 2 player Timo Boll in the semifinals, after beating compatriot Wang Liqin and Jean-Michel Saive of Belgium earlier. During the whole championship, Ma Lin had dropped only 4 sets on his way to the final. He continued his terrific form to win 4-1 against the Greek, Kreanga. Even though Kreanga took the first game at 11-9, he was not able to do much after that, when Ma Lin took the next 4 sets 11-6, 11-9, 11-7, and 11-9.

The 31-year old Kreanga commented after the match, “It was a good game. I expected to play better against Ma than I did before and I succeeded in keeping him away from me in the first game, but that was all. I lost to him a 1-4 one more time. I have to say that Ma is the best player in the world.” The 23-year old Ma Lin said, “I tried to lead Kreanga by the nose as he is good at rallies. I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the match.”