Timo Boll turned 40 on Monday. In tenth place in the world rankings he is still the best German table tennis player. This makes the task of developing internationally competitive German players all the more important.
The talents are trained at those Bundesliga locations that could now be endangered by a fundamentally changed tournament order of the world association. An extensive new series called “World Table Tennis” (WTT) demands significantly more appointments and makes it difficult for reluctant athletes to cancel because it threatens to deduct points for the world rankings. Top players would then have to decide: WTT tournaments or Bundesliga.
Global table tennis would like to be like tennis or golf. Four major tournaments called “Grand Smashes”, each with three million dollars in prize money, are to become the ultimate. 28 further tournaments plus “Grand Finals” form the foundation. For traditional competitions there is hardly any air to breathe. The Bundesliga is already feeling a scratchy throat.
International players also benefit from the Bundesliga
It is sacred to German table tennis. Prominent players bring the big wide world to the province. The Swedish vice world champion Mattias Falck plays for Werder Bremen, the Brazilian world number sixth Hugo Calderano for Ochsenhausen, the Nigerian Quadri Aruna for Fulda-Maberzell. Every fourth professional from the top 60 in the world rankings plays in the Bundesliga.
The training opportunities at the Bundesliga locations are even more important for German table tennis. Without this infrastructure there would be no top international players from Germany. Patrick Franziska from Saarbrücken, Benedikt Duda from Bergneustadt and Dang Qiu from Grünwettersbach are trying to establish themselves in the waters of German role models such as Timo Boll and Dimitrij Ovtcharov.
But international players also benefit from the Bundesliga. The Brazilian Calderano, who will soon no longer play for TTC Ochsenhausen in order to focus on the new tournament series, still wants to stay in Ochsenhausen so that he can continue to use the excellent conditions.
The global concept threatens to unscrew this basic structure of German table tennis. The Bundesliga clubs feel left out. Next week, Andreas Preuss, Kristijan Pejinovic and Karl Kamps, as the supervisory board of the Bundesliga, as well as their manager Nico Stehle and sports director Richard Prause from the German Table Tennis Association, will join forces with WTT Europe manager Jonny Cowan. You want to know more about the tournament series and clarify your own point of view. Compromises seem necessary. But with its top stars, its professional infrastructure and an annual turnover of around five million euros, the Bundesliga doesn’t have to hide. The supervisory board boss Preuss promises: “We will not dissolve!” A comforting thought – also for old master Boll and his legacy.
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