Table tennis: BVB impress at the record champions | OneFootball

Only a look at the table put a damper on the strong performance. After their first defeat in a third away match, the team coached by BVB’s Evgeny Fadeev slipped back behind Werder Bremen in the Final4 zone for the time being before the season break, with an even points record.

Team news

Fadeev opted not to use top player Anders Lind and instead named Wim Verdonschot as the Black-and-Yellows’ number one for the first time. “Wim should play; in a match like this, in front of a crowd like this, he can learn a lot,” Fadeev emphasized as an important part of his thinking. Behind the 21-year-old, the coach rotated the “regular lineup” from the opening weeks of the season and put Joao Geraldo in position two, with Kristian Karlsson as number three against his former club. In case a deciding doubles match had been needed, Adam Szudi and Cedric Nuytinck were ready as “specialists.”

Match report

In the “Lion’s Den,” the Black-and-Yellows put in a very strong showing in front of 3,000 spectators and made the heavily favored home side work surprisingly hard. In the opening singles match, Geraldo first earned himself two set points against Fan, was not discouraged by the unfortunate loss of the first set, and quite literally battled his way to the very last rally against his prominent opponent. Geraldo’s fighting spirit, however, went unrewarded.

Apparently unfazed by the deficit, Verdonschot then stepped into the box. Against Kanak Jha, who is ranked almost 40 places higher in the world rankings, the U21 European Championship silver medalist showed no sign of any gap in class. On the contrary: apart from the third set, Verdonschot was the dominant player in his first duel with the USA’s medal hopeful for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and confidently celebrated his fifth straight TTBL victory. Only one player in the TTBL has a longer winning streak than the BVB rookie: Düsseldorf’s Olympic champion Fan Zhendong.

After Verdonschot’s equalizer, Karlsson raised hopes of a temporary lead against the league leaders by taking the first set against newly crowned Star Contender Astana winner Dang Qiu. After that, however, the former European champion Qiu underlined his status as a top-10 player and ultimately came through without real danger.

Verdonschot handled the pressure of the formal top singles match against Fan in impressive fashion. With a healthy dose of cheek, but also astonishing creativity and quality, the BVB newcomer demanded far more from the two-time singles world champion than expected. In thrilling rallies, Verdonschot repeatedly put Fan under pressure. Even though Fan eventually prevailed after three match points and four sets in total, Verdonschot left the hall as a highly promising new BVB signing.

Reaction

Ursula Reitemeyer (Head of Table Tennis): “We played well, we showed ourselves well, and we certainly won’t complain. After his such clear win in the first match, Wim was even in the realm of a sensation against Fan. He was absolutely top class and showed that he has taken another step forward in recent weeks.”

Evgeny Fadeev (Coach): “We played really well, so well that you could almost be disappointed because maybe there was more in it for us against this great Düsseldorf team. For the spectators it was a top match that was genuinely enjoyable. Unfortunately, we were still missing that final little bit, but above all it is important for us to see that our great team was able to present itself like this and put Düsseldorf under so much pressure that we can almost be annoyed not to have won. But if we keep this up, we will get our big wins too. Wim played incredibly well; he already has a superb level.”

Wim Verdonschot (Player): “There was an incredible atmosphere in this hall; it’s an amazing feeling to play in front of a crowd like this. I couldn’t have dreamed of it being any better, especially against Fan Zhendong, although maybe I could have made it to a fifth set as well. Overall I played really well, so I’m very satisfied. That I would play against Kanak was not the plan, because we only knew that Düsseldorf would of course put Fan Zhendong at number one. I had nothing to lose, just tried to play and to play what I can. That worked really well.”

Outlook

A roughly six-week break from matches has now begun for the BVB team. Following the individual European Championships and further tournaments on the international WTT series, the Black-and-Yellows’ first league match back is away at Final4 rival Werder Bremen on November 11 (Wednesday, 7 p.m., Dyn). Two days later (November 13/Friday, 6 p.m., Tickets here, Dyn), BVB’s next home match will take place against TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen.

Table Tennis, Bundesliga, Matchday 6:

Borussia Düsseldorf – BV Borussia 09 Dortmund 3:1

Fan Zhendong (WR: --) – Joao Geraldo (WR: 34) 3:0 (13:11, 12:10, 11:9)

Kanak Jha (WR: 25) – Wim Verdonschot (WR: 62) 1:3 (6:11, 5:11, 11:5, 10:12)

Dang Qiu (WR: 10) – Kristian Karlsson (WR: 40) 3:1 (9:11, 11:3, 12:10, 11:6)

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.