German competition parity

(By Steve Hopkins, photo TTBL)

Four weeks in the new season of the German Professional League (TTBL), and there are no unbeaten teams – and 8 of the 12 teams fall within one match.

Pres season Favorite Saarbrucken (who added fan Zhendong to an incredibly talented selection) lost their first game and has now won three in a row. Saarbrucken is one of the three teams that are first bound, and one of the five teams with a 3-1 general record. Just like the fate of his team, Fan lost his first two games in his new team, but has since won 3 consecutive.

Schwalbe Bergneurstadt fell to Bremen in their third week – such as the only loss of Saarbrucken, Schwalbe fell in a week when their best player (Benedict Duda) was twice. The other first place team, ASC Grunwettersbach, had their only loss against Muhlhausen. Bremen and Muhlhausen are also 3-2, but with totals from the lower point, so she places that in the fourth and fifth with a break. The only loss of Bremen was Ochsenhausen, and they got two of the squadrons for them. And the only loss of Muhlhausen was against Schwalbe.

Expect things to be even tighter when the 2-2 squadrons find their pass. Ochsenhausen (2-2) has so far has the best-performing player, Togami and a deep team with consistent players. RhonSprudel Fulda-Marberzell has OVTcharov, Groth, Fan Bo Meng and Filus. And despite registering two losses, Borussia Dusseldorf has their “first” team not present for their losses – in fact, their best three players (Dang Qiu, Anton Kallberg and Kanak JHA) have only been present once – and that was one of their victories.

The only 4-0 player is Shunsuke Togami who plays for Ochsenhausen. Jo Yokotani, a less well-known Japanese player, is 4-1 together with Tiago Apolonia and Matias Falck. Some other players are unbeaten, but because of their travel schedules they have not played so many matches, for example Darko Jorgic, otherwise Lind and Patrick Franziska are all 3-0. Kanak JHA from the US is 3-2 for Dusseldorf.

With two -thirds of the competition that is legitimate fighting for a chance of the last four, there must be a lot of great table tennis this season.

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