Table Tennis Champions League Men 2020/21
Borussia Düsseldorf won the Champions League in 2018 Fakel Gazprom Orenburg from Russia a year later. At the beginning of 2020 both were in the semifinals then the season was canceled. Both are top favorites again this year.
Table Tennis Champions League is always a great challenge but this year even greater. Without tournaments for months; in completely new format under very strict measures players will have to cope with much more than they used to. From December 11th to 18th the whole season will be summarized in eight days. During that period the finalist had to play six matches.
It will show how well the teams from Orenburg and Düsseldorf can face the large number of games in this short time. However it is not only two clubs who want to win the title TTSC UMMC Yekaterinburg (Russia) and 1. FC Saarbrücken (Germany) are also among the favorites . These four teams are at the top of the seeding list.
GV Hennebont TT (France seeded no. 5) and Dekorglass Dzaldowo (Poland) will also enter the race with chances although the Poles are only ranked 13th. However this is due to the fact of the new criteria for the creating the seedings which takes into account the club’s successes of the past three years and no longer the world rankings as before.
Borussia’s four biggest competitors for the title have all already played in the ARAG CenterCourt and nine of the other ten clubs have already been to Düsseldorf. Only de Boer Taverzo from the Netherlands is coming to the state capital for the first time the team will have the premiere in the Champions League this year. The club from South Netherlands is Borussia’s opening opponent on Friday.
“It’s nice that a Dutch team is there and also in our group ” said coach Danny HEISTER.. “De Boer Taverzo is definitely the weakest team in our group so I’m hoping for a good start for my team. After that it’s about getting through to the knockout round against Hennebont and Dzialdowo.”
The first and second placed club from the Group advance to the quarter-finals. The group winners meet a runner-up the draw for this takes place after the preliminary round matches.
“We want to be first so that we can meet the other top teams in the semi-finals at the earliest ” said HEISTER. “But that is still a long way off. First of all we have to get into the tournament well and survive the group. “
World-class players such as Timo BOLL (world ranking: 10) Dimitrij OVTCHAROV (12 Fakel Gazprom Orenburg) Liam PITCHFORD (15 TTSC UMMC) and Patrick FRANZISKA (16 1. FC Saarbrücken) lead the select field of Champions League participants which with other top athletes such as Marcos FREITAS (25 Fakel Gazprom Orenburg) Vladimir SAMSONOV (27 Fakel Gazprom Orenburg) Kristian KARLSSON (29) Jonathan GROTH (30 UMMC) Darko JORGIC (31 1. FC Saarbrücken) Tomislav PUCAR (33 TTSC UMMC) Omar ASSAR (41 GV Hennbont TT ) Daniel HABESOHN (44 Post SV Mühlhausen) and Andrej GACINA (47 Dekorglass Dzialdowo).
Saarbrücken’s SHANG Kun Michael MAZE from Roskilde and Dzialdowos Jakub DYJAS should not be missing from the list even if they are not listed at the World rankings or are not (no longer) placed in the top 50. Kun is one of the best Bundesliga players but not listed MAZE is hardly active internationally (332) or DYJAS is currently “only” number 65 in the world. The Pole played for Ochsenhausen in the last play-off semi-final and turned things around with his narrow win over Anton KALLBERG (2: 3).
Not only the tournament format mode will be new for all teams but also there are few rule changes. There will be no more coaching breaks after games one and three and the sudden death decisive game will be introduced as well as it was in Women’s Champions League earlier in December. In addition there are hygiene-related adjustments to the regulations. This includes that there are no more sides to be changed the balls are exchanged after each individual match…
You can find Borussia Dusseldorf web page here
