New dates for 21st and 22nd matchday due to WTT Champions Tournament

Due to short-term changes in the international tournament calendar, there will be changes in the scheduling of the two final main round match days in the Table Tennis Bundesliga (TTBL).

Unlike planned, the 22nd and thus final matchday, with all six matches being played at the same time, will not take place until April 30 (Sunday) instead of April 14 (Friday) as planned. For the pairings of the 21st matchday, which was originally scheduled to be played from April 10 (Easter Monday) to April 12 (Wednesday), new dates will be set in consultation with the clubs by the middle of next week.

The background to the postponements is the WTT Champions Tournament in Xingxiang, which has also been included in the annual schedule. According to the organizer World Table Tennis (WTT), the competition in China, which was only officially announced at the beginning of the week, will take place from April 9 (Easter Sunday) to April 15 (Saturday). The participation in a tournament of the high-ranking Champions category is obligatory for the qualified players according to international regulations, so that the competition is protected by the framework schedule committee of the DTTB and the TTBL in the same way as the highest WTT category "Grand Smash".

The necessity of the short-term postponements is anything but nice for our fans and partners and a very big challenge for our clubs. We hope for the future that a repetition of these events can be prevented by a longer-term reliable scheduling by the world federation in the future. As a member of the table tennis family we also understand WTT that after the Corona pandemic not all scheduled tournaments could be scheduled early, but for us as TTBL in its entirety it is of course also of elementary importance to be able to design our match schedules not only at short notice with the greatest possible reliability for all involved," explains TTBL Managing Director Nico Stehle.