SPECIAL REPORT

With 16 doubles pairings registered, this competition began with a round of 16 in the knockout system, in which the 8 winners played for the double A title and the losers played for the double B title. In exciting duels in the respective semi-finals and finals, Maximilian Schmid/Daniel Rosenbaum finally prevailed against Bernadette Loritz/Katharina Peter and won the title of double B club champions. In the double final of performance class A, the winner was Jeremias Kobold/Luca Mammitzsch, who won against Gabriel Kobold/Leonhard Wagner and secured the title of double A club champions.

Now the eagerly awaited individual competitions began, which were initially played in four groups of four in the “everyone against everyone” mode. The first and second place teams then made it back to the final round of Youth A and the third and fourth placed teams played against the Youth B club champions. After the group phase, the game continued again in the knockout system with quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals. The B final was finally called Katharina Peter against Stefan Wucher. Stefan Wucher was able to score points with his quick serves right from the start and after two relatively clear sets he was leading 2-0. The third set was very even and competitive. When the score was 10:9, Katharina Peter even had set point and was about to turn the game around. However, ball security on this day was the decisive factor and after defending the set ball, Stefan Wucher was able to win this set and the game. Stefan Wucher won the club championship B ahead of Katharina Peter, Maximilian Schmid came third in the small final against Bernadette Loritz. Simon Scholer, Noa Jakljevic and Agshin Jafarov followed in second place.

Since the German Table Tennis Association decided to open games for women and men in November last year, our girls initially competed together with the boys. At the end of the two performance classes A/B, the girls’ club champions A and B were played. Third place went to Bernadette Loritz, club champion B was Katharina Peter and club champion A was confident Sayme Amet.

The end of the long day of the tournament was the Youth A final in which Sebastian Wucher and Luca Mammitzsch faced off. The theme of this pairing was very clear from the start – attack versus defense – which style of play will prevail? The powerful forehand from Sebastian or the confident backhand from Luca. In a first set that was nervous on both sides, Sebastian had the upper hand. In the second set, Luca became more and more confident, countered the topspins with aggressive block balls and immediately equalized the set. The following two sets were always even and competitive. The game became a thriller with long, great rallies and sets 3 and 4 each ended 11:9. This meant the set was tied at 2:2 and the decisive 5th set followed. At first everything looked like a clear win for Sebastian Wucher, who quickly led 5-1 until the break. He made the game quick with his well-placed serves, allowing him to repeatedly use his offensive forehand successfully and forcing his opponent to make mistakes. But Luca was unimpressed and got back to 7:8. A slight shooting error from Luca and a strong forehand point from Sebastian led to match point. It was a game in which both of them deserved to win, but in the end Sebastian Wucher’s powerful game at the table was decisive and he won the deciding set 11:7 after another strong forehand. Undefeated that day, he was able to defend his title from the previous year and became club champion again. In the small final for third place, Jeremias Kobold had the upper hand against Sebastian Peter. The other placings in performance class A: 5th Gabriel Kobold, 6th Sayme Amet, 7th Leonhard Wagner and 8th Daniel Rosenbaum.

After an exciting day of tournaments, everyone finally sat together in the Reichsadler for the award ceremony. Department head Roland Arnold congratulated all participants for their great achievements with certificates, as well as of course trophies for the boys, girls and doubles club champions. Even though some people were still arguing about how the tournament went, in the end there were only happy faces.