WTT Champions: Two podium places for TTBL aces
The stars of the Tischtennis Bundesliga (TTBL) put in a good performance at the WTT Champions Tournament in Macau. On the return to everyday competition after the World Team Championships, a duo from the German elite class even made it onto the podium.
The aces from the Table Tennis Bundesliga (TTBL) sold the German elite class extremely well at the WTT Champions in Macau. Through the semi-final participations of runner-up Truls Moregard and Lin Yun-Ju, the TTBL even booked places on the podium at the 800,000 dollar competition in the Chinese enclave.
In the fight for a place in the final, the duo from TTC Neu-Ulm had no chance against two top Chinese. Moregard failed to win a set in four rounds against Wang Chuqin, the world number three and eventual title winner, and thus missed out on a rematch of the 2021 World Championship final in Houston because his club mate Lin lost 2:4 to the world champion and world number one Fan Zhendong.
Fan proved to be a real TTBL terror on his way to the final: Before his success in the final round against Lin, the Olympic silver medalist had first knocked out the US American Kanak Jha (TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen) in the round of 16 and then also the Slovenian European Championship silver medalist Darko Jorgic (1. FC Saarbrücken-TT) in the round of the best eight.
Apart from the semifinals, the TTBL also provided half of the players in the quarterfinals. In addition to Moregard, Li and Jorgic, Mattias Falck (Werder Bremen) also won two matches before the draw forced the former World Championship silver medallist into a Swedish duel with his TTBL colleague Moregard.
After an opening success at the high-caliber tournament all the way to the round of 16, there was another quintet from the Bundesliga. In addition to Jha, however, European champion and team runner-up Dang Qiu (Borussia Düsseldorf), national players Dimitrij Ovtcharov (Neu-Ulm) and Patrick Franziska (Saarbrücken) and Qiu's club colleague Anton Källberg also missed out on the round of the best eight. Without victory in Macau remained the World Championship third and record European champion Timo Boll (Düsseldorf), the Japanese Tomokazu Harimoto (Neu-Ulm) and Yukiya Uda (TSV Bad Königshofen), the Nigerian Quadri Aruna (TTC RhönSprudel Fulda-Maberzell) and the Kazakh Kirill Gerassimenko (Bremen).
The draw prevented even better success rates for the TTBL professionals. In total, players from German clubs met in six matches, three times in the first round alone. In his three appearances up to the quarterfinal elimination, Falck played exclusively duels with TTBL colleagues.