Idman.biz
2025 has been a productive year for Azerbaijani table tennis.
This was stated by the head coach of the Azerbaijani men's national table tennis team, Mikhail Timofeev, in an interview with Idman.Biz.
Mikhail Timofeev emphasized that our women's team and mixed doubles team won bronze medals at the Islamic Games. In addition, we had numerous participations in international tournaments.
The head coach noted that although the national team is still very young, Azerbaijani athletes have already achieved significant successes. In particular, M. Timofeev distinguished Adil Ahmadzade and Rustam Hajili, and called 15-year-old tennis player Onur Guluzade the leader of the men's team.
"Onur Guluzade won medals at international competitions held in Qatar and Turkey. We recently returned from Tunisia – where he took first place in the doubles tournament and second place in the individual tournament," said M. Timofeev.
According to M. Timofeev, a generation of young athletes is also actively developing in Azerbaijan: "Currently, they are preparing for the open rating international tournament to be held in Germany and the Czech Republic."
The role of Chinese and Azerbaijani tennis players in development
The head coach emphasized that the team regularly travels to China to train with the best athletes in the world:
"Last year we traveled to China five times. China is the leading country in table tennis, it is almost their national sport. Such training camps greatly help the development of table tennis in our country as well."
M. Timofeev added that during trips to China, Azerbaijani athletes compete on an equal footing with local tennis players:
"Onur Guluzade is in no way inferior to them. He is included in the international team of talented athletes under 15 years old. Last year he was invited to participate in a training camp in Sweden. This was mainly organized at the initiative of the International Federation."
The head coach of the national team also touched upon the topic of popularity and development of table tennis in Azerbaijan:
"Sports halls and table tennis clubs are opening in our country. Our federation is actively involved in this. The federation always provides support to schools and institutes that need table tennis tables and equipment. Thanks to athletes invited from China, who achieved great success, interest in our sport in Azerbaijan increased, as well as among coaches. Because previously there were no such strong athletes in the country, except for the Soviet era. Now we have high-level local tennis players."
According to M. Timofeev, social networks also play an important role in popularizing the sport, and interest in table tennis is gradually increasing. However, he emphasizes that there is still a lot of room for this sport to develop in Azerbaijan:
"We would like more people to play table tennis. In addition, we lack an inter-club championship."
M. Timofeev calls on people of all age groups to try themselves in this field and says that there are no restrictions in this sport: "But, of course, if you want to practice at a professional level, it is recommended to start at an early age – from six years old. You can even start earlier if the parents are former athletes and can prepare the child at home."
National Team Plans
M. Timofeev said that the team is currently preparing for the European Youth Championship, which will be held in the Czech Republic in July, and also aims to participate in the World Youth Championship. For this, it is important to increase the rating of athletes. According to the expert, the federation also has a program to prepare athletes with the aim of winning licenses for the Olympic Games:
"We hope and are preparing. We have seven athletes - three boys and four girls, we are actively working with them. We hope that someone from them will be able to win a license. The main thing in this process is to participate more often in international tournaments, increase the rating and train with higher-level opponents."
