"Dragonslayer" Patrick Franziska: "Now I can press Timo a spell".
Patrick Franziska caused one of the loudest bangs of the table tennis summer with his surprise coup against China's Olympic champion Ma Long at the WTT Champions tournament in Budapest. In the interview, the 30-year-old talks about the significance of his success, but also about his expectations for the home European Championships in Munich, the World Team Championships in Chengdu and his goals with runner-up 1. FC Saarbrücken TT in the upcoming season of the Tischtennis Bundesliga (TTBL).
Patrick Franziska, you described your sensational win over China's Olympic champion Ma Long at the WTT Champions in Budapest as the biggest victory of your career. What do you think about this coup with some distance?
Of course, it is and remains something mega special because I had never won a set against him before and had completely lost at the Grand Final in China. A victory against one of the greatest players of all time, if not the greatest of all time, who is also an Olympic champion, is something very special and also gives me a lot of self-confidence because I now know that I can also hold my own against such a strong player on a super day.
Dimitrij Ovtcharov has never been able to beat Ma Long, and Timo Boll's last success against Ma was some time ago - what exactly went so well for you in Budapest?
It was certainly also the momentum. I noticed right away in the first set that he made easy mistakes, missed half-long balls, although that's actually his best shot with the forehand, and overall didn't seem to feel so comfortable. Besides, such a best-of-five match is usually easier to play for the underdog than for the favorite, because once you lead 3:2 in a best-of-seven match, it's still a marathon to win the fourth set as well. For all these reasons, I took the timeout in the first set to secure the set. I just felt that he was beatable that day.
The German media recently reported that you had slain the "Chinese dragon. Do you like being called the "dragon slayer"?
Ehlich said: I already liked the nickname. Friends from Sweden also sent me a caricature of a dragon slayer. It's a cool nickname, because it shows once again that it was something special to have won against the "dragon".
Successes like yours in Budapest raise expectations even higher. Have you already thought about how you want to deal with this?
The expectations are already high, and I set the highest expectations for myself. I've already won against one or two of the top Chinese in the past, so I expect myself to keep stepping on the gas. Of course, I would love to play every day like I did against Ma Long in Budapest, but that's not so easy in competitive sports because a lot of things come together. The nice thing was that I trained a lot of little things in the past months and worked hard with my coaches on different things like my passive game or backhand, and now I know even more that the more meticulously and hard you work on such things, the more often you succeed in the match, especially my passive game was maybe better in Budapest than ever before, so it was a great confirmation. But as I said, I have the highest expectations of myself.
That will probably also apply to the European Championships at home. In Munich, after Budapest at the latest, many people count you among the very narrow circle of favorites. What are your expectations for the European Championships?
At a European Championship, and especially at a home European Championship, all of us on the German team are among the narrow favorites and want to get to the medal places and jump further ahead. But Europe is so strong at the moment, there are so many players, almost entire generations, who can make it to the top, whether Truls Moregard, Darko Jorgic, the other Swedes, the French - in my opinion there are many players who can make it to the top. It's hard to say what the final outcome will be. But it's also clear that after a tournament like the one in Budapest, the self-confidence is definitely there.
You are also among the title candidates in doubles with Timo Boll. You have overtaken your former idol Boll in the world rankings since the last week of July. What does that do to you - and are you now the new boss in doubles?
No, I don't want to be the boss in doubles with Timo. Timo is such an exceptional player, definitely also the greatest of all time in Germany. We don't have such a distribution of roles, we know each other inside out and really understand each other blindly, as our good results at the Olympics and at other major tournaments before that have shown. I always look forward to every doubles match with Timo, especially because we get along so well on the outside. The fact that I'm now ahead of him in the rankings makes me especially happy, of course, because now I can also give Timo a joke in private once in a while, because otherwise I always get one from him. Reversing that now is the coolest thing, because whether I'm two places ahead or behind him isn't that important, because there's a lot of movement there anyway. The important thing is just always to work hard.
You're number eleven in the rankings, but you're also on the threshold of the top 10. What would promotion to this elite group mean to you?
The top 10 has always been a huge goal for me, of course, and I've come close a few other times. Basically, I always feel it's a nice confirmation when you climb up the rankings. However, so much happens in the new system and you never know exactly when the next tournament will be. A top-10 finish would still mean a lot to me, but it's more important for me to play in big tournaments, perform well and implement what I've been training for, then I'll go as far up the rankings as I can.
A few weeks after Munich, the World Team Championships will also be held in Chengdu in early fall. Did your win against Ma Long reshuffle the cards despite the home advantage for defending champion China?
I don't think that my victory against Ma Long will change anything for the starting positions at the World Championships in China, except that Ma Long will have another look at our game and would then be even better prepared. China is and will remain the power, especially if they play with Ma Long, World Champion Fan Zhendong, the Budapest Star-Contender winner Wang Chuqin or Liang Jingkun, and therefore also the very big favorite. But we Germans have always said that we will continue to attack, and every win against a Chinese player is not only good for the individual player, but for the whole team, because it shows that on a good day they are beatable for us.
The new season in the German Table Tennis League (TTBL) begins between Munich and Chengdu. After the unfortunate defeat in the final last season with the 1st FC Saarbrücken TT against Borussia Düsseldorf, what are your hopes for the new season?
We're all looking forward to the new season in Saarbrücken because we have two new faces in Jin Takuya and Cedric Nuytinck, which means we have a broader squad and can absorb injuries better than in the past. With Cedric, we have also been able to largely close the doubles as our biggest construction site. All in all, it's going to be an exciting and interesting season because a lot of teams have stepped up their game. We'll have to really step on the gas to get to the finals again. But this strength across the board is exactly what's good for the league.