The "TTBL Player of the Month March": Patrick Franziska from 1. FC Saarbrücken TT

In a social media survey, TTBL fans had the opportunity to vote for their "TTBL Player of the Month March". This month's choices were Patrick Franziska and Yuto Muramatsu (both 1. FC Saarbrücken TT), Feng Yi-Hsin (TTC Zugbrücke Grenzau) and Tiago Apolonia (ASV Grünwettersbach). For the second time in just a few months, the majority of supporters of the German top flight voted for Patrick Franziska as "Player of the Month".

Patrick Franziska has all kinds of reasons to be happy at the beginning of April. Just a few days after successfully defending his Champions League title with 1. FC Saarbrücken TT, fans in the social media community of the German Table Tennis League (TTBL) voted him "Player of the Month March" for his performances at the finals in Europe's premier league - for the second time in the last four votes following his success in the December vote.

However, the renewed recognition from German table tennis fans is by no means "business as usual" for Franziska. "I'm very happy about it and, like last time, I'm very happy about it," the 31-year-old commented on the voting result when asked by the TTBL media team: "For me, this vote means a great deal of appreciation."

However, Franziska's strong spring awakening in recent weeks could hardly be underestimated. First of all, the World Championship bronze medalist in doubles marched into the quarter-finals at the WTT Singapore Smash premium tournament with victories over team runner-up Simon Gauzy and in the German duel with veteran Dimitrij Ovtcharov and, above all, a surprise coup against China's superstar Ma Long in between.

Although this was followed by a defeat against the notorious "German terror" Kirill Gerassimenko in Saarbrücken's encounter with Werder Bremen in the TTBL, Franziska's form was not affected: After reaching the round of 16 at the WTT Champions in Incheon, Saarbrücken's captain first helped the hosts to the final four of the Champions League by beating Ovtcharov (Neu-Ulm) again in the final and then to a second successive triumph in Europe's most important club competition in the final against Borussia Düsseldorf by beating Anton Källberg.

Franziska still looks back with satisfaction on his second victory in Singapore against the Chinese icon Ma Long. "A success like this against Ma, which you really don't get to celebrate every day, shows me that I'm on the right track and that my game is right," said the "Dragon Slayer".

But Franziska doesn't measure herself by results alone. "Even in my 0:3 in Incheon against world champion Fan Zhendong, there were two sets that I almost couldn't play better," emphasizes the Hesse native: "The past few weeks have been pretty good, but it's not just the successes that are very important to me, but also how I played and how my game is currently working. Despite the travel and a bit of stress between competitions, I'm pretty clear, I'm also feeling very good physically and I'm having a lot of fun playing table tennis, which is always the most important thing - and the successes help with that, of course."

Florian Manzke