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Ten aces will fight for the title at the sixth edition of the Düsseldorf Masters 2021 on Sunday. The seeding list is headed by previous week’s winner Benedikt DUDA. Toughest adversaries for the number four of the German Olympic team for Tokyo are Portugal Open winner Dang Qiu and Borussia Düsseldorf’s Swedish star Anton KÄLLBERG. The tournament in the ARAG CenterCourt starts at 10 a.m., the final is played at 3:30 p.m. All encounters will again be streamed live on sportdeutschland.tv, on Borussia TV and on tischtennis.de.
Just a few days after his Masters success last Sunday, Benedikt DUDA was able to celebrate another triumph. DUDA was appointed for the first time in his career in the German team for the Olympic Games, which are playing for a medal in Tokyo. Even if the 27-year-old left-hander is only used in the event of illness or injury to the top 20 players Dimitrij OVTCHAROV, Timo BOLL and Patrick FRANZISKA, the nomination for Tokyo alone makes a childhood dream of the ambitious national player come true: “Me I am very happy and overwhelmed. I am delighted that Jörg ROSSKOPF and the coaching team give me the chance to be part of the team at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. It is very good that the hard training is now working out day in, day out with participation in the Olympics pays. “
At the Düsseldorf Masters, the future Olympian DUDA will work on his form for Tokyo on Sunday, because as a supplementary player he has to count on his commitment at all times. Benedikt DUDA: “I’m really looking forward to the Masters. Every tournament is of great importance to me. Only competitions give me the necessary feedback as to whether I can implement everything that I worked on in training. In the last Masters, it did It worked out well, I hope it will be the same this Sunday. For me, taking part in the Düsseldorf Masters is another step towards the Olympics. But the competition on Sunday is strong. “
Two competitors in particular are able to make the pressure on DUDA. One is Duda’s standard doubles partner Dang Qiu, who will move from ASV Grünwettersbach to Düsseldorf’s Borussia next season. In his only Masters appearance so far, the penholder ace listed 52nd in the world surprisingly lost to youngster Cedric MEISSNER (Mainz). The other is Qiu’s future club colleague Anton KÄLLBERG, who is listed immediately behind the German in 53rd place in the ITTF ranking and won the first Masters edition in 2021.
The Düsseldorf Masters is a joint project between the host Borussia Düsseldorf and the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB). The last of the seven tournaments in 2021 will be played on May 30th. As in the previous year, all encounters will be streamed completely and with multiple cameras live on sportdeutschland.tv, on Borussia TV and on tischtennis.de. On-site spectators are not permitted due to the pandemic.
The four top seed
1 Benedikt Duda GER (TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt)
2 Dang Qiu GER (ASV Grünwettersbach)
3 Anton Källberg SWE (Borussia Düsseldorf)
4 Tobias Hippler GER (1. FC Cologne)
The other participants
Gerrit Engemann GER (TTC GW Bad Hamm)
Cedric Meissner GER (FSV Mainz 05)
Benno Oehme GER (TTC RöhnSprudel Fulda-Maberzell)
Nils Hohmeier GER (TTC OE Bad Homburg)
Fanbo Meng GER (TTC RöhnSprudel Fulda-Maberzell)
Kiril Fadeev GER (Borussia Dortmund)
