Match day #12: Saarbrücken travels to Dortmund, Bremen welcomes Bad Königshofen

One week after the showdown in the German Table Tennis Cup, the Table Tennis Bundesliga (TTBL) is also picking up speed again. The first match of the new year will take place on Sunday at ASC Grünwettersbach, which will host Post SV Mühlhausen at 1 p.m. Later in the day, cup winners 1. FC Saarbrücken TT will face Borussia Dortmund, while league leaders SV Werder Bremen will host TSV Bad Königshofen. All matches will be broadcast live on Dyn.

ASC Grünwettersbach – Post SV Mühlhausen

The ASC Grünwettersbach management team must have been looking at the Table Tennis Bundesliga (TTBL) table with some concern before Christmas. While the Baden team lost three games in a row, their rivals at the bottom of the table scored eagerly and closed the gap again. Although Grünwettersbach remains well above the relegation zone in eighth place, their lead is anything but comfortable. With 8:14 points, ASC is level with three other teams, including their upcoming opponents in tenth place. Post SV Mühlhausen has also lost its last three matches and is now looking to make a successful start to the year and break free from the bottom of the table – but the same goes for Grünwettersbach. The first leg in August at the Lotto Thüringen Center Court went to Mühlhausen, with Steffen Mengel scoring twice to make it 3:1.

TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt – Borussia Düsseldorf

Borussia Düsseldorf has fond memories of its most recent encounter with TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt: in the first leg in November, the record champions celebrated a 3:1 victory, taking the lead in the table for the first time this season. A repeat of this success on Sunday would be an important milestone on the road to the playoffs: Düsseldorf is currently in third place with 16:6 points, giving it a small cushion over fifth-placed Bergneustadt (12:10). How the two teams start the new year will likely depend to a large extent on the form of their top players when they return from Doha. Bergneustadt's Benedikt Duda (2:3 against Lin Shidong) was eliminated in the round of 16 at the WTT Champions on Friday, as was Düsseldorf's Dang Qiu (0:3 against Felix Lebrun); his teammate Anton Källberg (1:3 against Yukiya Uda) had previously been knocked out in the first round. “We will field the best possible team,” announced Borussia manager Andreas Preuß. “Bergneustadt is one of our most dangerous pursuers, and of course we don't just want to stay in a playoff spot, we want to consolidate our position.”

TTC RhönSprudel Fulda-Maberzell – TTC OE Clarity-Telefonie Systeme Bad Homburg

It's a quick reunion for TTC RhönSprudel Fulda-Maberzell and TTC OE Clarity-Telefonie Systeme Bad Homburg: just last Sunday, the two teams faced each other in the cup semi-final and fought a duel on equal terms. In the end, Fulda prevailed 3:2 and advanced to the final, where they lost 1:3 to Saarbrücken. Now the East Hessians are hoping to climb a few more places in the league and make it into the top four there as well. However, the team will have to do without Kao Cheng-Jui, who has not yet played a game this season and is still out with injury. “It will be extremely difficult to reach the Bundesliga Final Four,” Qing Yu Meng recently told Osthessen-News. This makes another victory against Bad Homburg all the more important – but the Taunus team is also desperate to score points to improve its position in the table. Although Bad Homburg is currently ninth, above the line, it is level on points with Grenzau in eleventh place with 8:14 points.

Borussia Dortmund – 1. FC Saarbrücken TT

1.FC Saarbrücken TT already has its first title of the year in the bag, and it hopes to collect more trophies in the TTBL and Champions League over the coming months. First, however, the newly crowned cup winner must make it to the playoffs, and the next hurdle on the way there is Borussia Dortmund. The cup victory last Sunday was the “initial spark” for the “decisive weeks,” said FCS team manager Nicolas Barrois in our interview. The starting position is excellent: with 16:6 points, Saarbrücken is on course in second place in the table. BVB is also eyeing a place in the top four: although Dortmund is currently only in seventh place, with 10:12 points it is only four points behind fourth place. BVB is hoping for a record crowd of more than 1,000 spectators at the Brügmann Sports Hall for the match against Saarbrücken. “Full stands and a great atmosphere are the best thing for any athlete and spur you on even more,” said Dortmund coach Evgeny Fadeev, hoping for a boost in motivation.

SV Werder Bremen – TSV Bad Königshofen

Where will the autumn champions end up? SV Werder Bremen secured first place in the table at the halfway point of the main round, which came as something of a surprise, and they are now hoping to secure a place in the playoffs. In the first half of the season, the Hanseatic club built up a small lead: with 18:4 points, Werder is already six points ahead of fifth-placed Bergneustadt. “As leaders after the first half of the season,” Werder coach Cristian Tamas told SID, "we now naturally want to reach the playoff semifinals. But even though we want to continue our winning streak against Bad Königshofen, we are only thinking about one game at a time and nothing else." TSV Bad Königshofen, on the other hand, can look back on a completely botched first half of the season: with 4:18 points, last year's fourth-placed team is bottom of the table going into the second half of the season and is already four points behind the relegation zone. To avoid the worst-case scenario, Bad Königshofen has secured the services of Chinese national player Xue Fei for the second half of the season, who is expected to lead the Lower Franconians to safety.

TTC Zugbrücke Grenzau – TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen

TTC Zugbrücke Grenzau gained a lot of momentum before Christmas: with two wins in a row – 3:1 in Grünwettersbach, 3:2 against Fulda – coach Slobodan Grujic's team doubled its points tally and catapulted itself within reach of the non-relegation places. With 8:14 points, Grenzau is now only separated from eighth place by a poorer game ratio. However, Grenzau now faces a tricky task against the reigning German champions: TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen, currently fourth in the table, are fighting for a place in the playoffs and have one of the best players in the TTBL in their ranks in Shunsuke Togami (11-1 singles record). Grenzau manager Markus Ströher describes Wednesday's match as a “very exciting challenge for our team”: “With our victories in Grünwettersbach and against Fulda, we have shown that we are in very good form at the moment. The home victory against Fulda with Dimitrij Ovtcharov certainly exceeded all expectations. It was a great and exciting evening of table tennis with a superb result. We want to build on that against Ochsenhausen, although we are of course aware of the strength of this team.”

Match day #12 at a glance

Sunday, January 11
1 pm: ASC Grünwettersbach – Post SV Mühlhausen
2 pm: TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt – Borussia Düsseldorf
5 pm: TTC RhönSprudel Fulda-Maberzell – TTC OE Clarity-Telefonie Systeme Bad Homburg

Monday, January 12
7 pm: Borussia Dortmund – 1. FC Saarbrücken TT

Tuesday, January 13
7 pm: SV Werder Bremen – TSV Bad Königshofen

Wednesday, January 14
7 pm: TTC Zugbrücke Grenzau – TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen

All matches will be broadcast live on Dyn.

Header photo: SV Werder Bremen's Mattias Falck (by Patrick Wichmann)