Hamburg  - Mountaineers and table tennis fans have played matches on the summit of Europe's highest peak, 5,642 metres Mt Elbrus, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) said on its German-language website on Tuesday.

Headed by Sergey Korkin, the vice president of Ukraine's table tennis federation, a 14-strong expedition set off in Dnepropetrovsk on July 14, with nine members eventually reaching the summit on July 31.

The expedition website said that Korkin and Viktor Kanunnikov played the first of four matches after installing a special table on the summit.

The project "Table tennis on Elbrus" was to come to an end when the team, from countries including Ukraine, Russia and Belrus, will return to Dnepropetrovsk on Wednesday.

Korkin, 51, said ahead of the climb that a successful attempt will be registered in the Guinness Book of World Records.

"The main goal of our expedition is to attract attention of a wide public of these countries to the table tennis as well as give a fitting answer to domination of China in the world tennis community," Korkin said.(dpa)