Ten months after its successful premiere the Düsseldorf Masters tournament series is celebrating its continuation. German and international world-class players will be on stage again in 2021 but the system of play has been changed. Six talents from the DTTB team each will challenge two aces seeded directly for the semifinals. The series commenced on April 11th at 10 a.m; the international stars Omar ASSAR (Egypt) and Anton KÄLLBERG (Sweden) are top seeded. The Düsseldorf Masters will be played on a total of seven Sundays in the ARAG CenterCourt until the end of May.
In 2020 the format initiated by Borussia Düsseldorf and carried out with the support of the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB) provided the elite with gaming practice regarding the tournament and league obligations that were canceled at the time. This time the talents who are engaged in the first to third leagues benefit more. The youngest members of the permanent training group at the German Table Tennis Center (DTTZ) have been hit hardest by the pandemic. While the stars in the TTBL in Germany compete in an almost unrestricted season all matches in the divisions under the 1st Bundesliga have fallen victim to the Corona restrictions for the talents since late autumn.
Top-class youngsters like the U21 European Championship finalist Gerrit ENGEMANN Europe Youth Top 10 winner Kay STUMPER Cedric MEISSNER Kirill FADEEV Benno OEHME and Tobias SÄLTZER who will start on the first Sunday will be at the Düsseldorf Masters Maximum match practice enabled in 2021. The compressed competition format offers an interesting mix of group and knockout systems almost every Sunday until the end of May. Six talents play in the preliminary round in two groups of three each against each other the two group winners are rewarded with the semi-finals. There two top-seeded world-class players from the DTTB training group of national coach Jörg ROSSKOPF and record champions Borussia Düsseldorf are waiting for their young challengers. Directly in the semifinals on the first Sunday of the Masters 2021 are Egypt’s multiple African champion Omar ASSAR and Borussia’s strong Swede Anton KÄLLBERG who has presented himself in impressive shape for his club for months and most recently at the WTT Star Contender in Doha.
Borussia manager Andreas PREUSS is also happy about the continuation of the Düsseldorf Masters: “Last year we were a pioneer for table tennis all over the world. This year we would like to make an important contribution to promoting our German talents who have hardly been able to compete for a year. The whole thing also has a great side effect: At the same time we regularly offer our fans top table tennis in the live stream during this low-event time. “
Preliminary group A
Gerrit Engemann (TTC GW Bad Hamm) Benno Oehme (TTC RöhnSprudel Fulda-Maberzell / new season: TTC OE Bad Homburg) Tobias Sältzer (TTC drawbridge Grenzau)
Preliminary group B
Kay Stumper (TTC Neu-Ulm) Cedric Meissner (FSV Mainz 05 / new season: TTC OE Bad Homburg) Kirill Fadeev (Borussia Dortmund)
The seeded semi-final participants
- Omar Assar EGY (GV Hennebont TT / FRA) 2. Anton Källberg SWE (Borussia Düsseldorf)
