The new table tennis star in Saarland: Fan Zhendong at his Olympic victory in Paris
Photo: Imago/Joel Marklund
The others can pack. The devil has landed: fan Zhendong, table tennis superstar from China, two -time world champion and Olympic champion, will play in Saarbrücken this year. On Wednesday morning he was presented to the German public at a specially called press conference. It was less about money – Fan Zhendong was tidy and well prepared. And: He will play all three competitions for 1. FC Saarbrücken with championship, cup and champions League. His first words to the audience: “Hello!”
It starts this Sunday for the home game against TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt. Then it goes to Bad Königshofen in the league before Borussia Dortmund comes to the Saar twice: in the championship and in the cup. If everything runs normally, the Champions League winner will march through in all three competitions. Fan Zhendong will not get any serious opponents. And team captain Patrick Franziska and Darko Jorgic, who is also in the top 10 in the world, are already taking care of the rest.
Game operation is badly distorted
Fittingly, the German association has changed the modalities: In the end, there should be a »Final 4« in the championship and cup that is expected to take place in Frankfurt am Main on a weekend. Including up to four game dates, including cup. This is due to the increasingly dense game calendar in table tennis.
It attaches little importance to the game in the leagues internationally. The trend of the World Association – which is sometimes WTT (World Table Tennis), sometimes ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation), depending on which tournament series he is responsible – is clearly towards the event: The tournament series of the WTT for single players and doubles are to be expanded. The national team competitions are reserved for the ITTF.
It is all the more astonishing that players and spectators are still interested in the Bundesliga. But for the athletes, league operations are lucrative: they can hire at least three clubs every season – the very distorted schedule is available. The Chinese Super League, for example, plays four times over three days. The clubs pay the players, the sponsors the clubs, and in the case of the Bundesliga, everyone is happy to be like Bolle that a crowd puller like Fan Zhendong flushes plenty of money into the coffers – so he plays. That won’t always be the case.
The dark side of this system is that the entire game is sometimes distorted to the third or fourth league. Sometimes the best line -up plays, sometimes only the second guard. In Saarbrücken, for example, a certain Truls Möregardh is also reported, which recently the first non-Chinese has won a so-called “Smash”, which is comparable to a Grand Slam in tennis. However, the Swede is probably only registered for the Champions League, and also only for the final round. He also plays with Swedish and Polish clubs.
The best in the world
The good mood of it remains untouched. The change, which is probably threaded by the main sponsor of Saarbrücken, triggers euphoria in German table tennis, even a sensation. Fan Zhendong himself felt in good hands at the press conference alongside harmony Franziska and coach Wang Zhi. In general, everything came to Chinese: every speech was translated into Chinese; Of the questioners, two of them could not be Chinese – the home deporters from the SR and the “Saarbrücker Zeitung”. The speech bubbles that separated the fan and the others would also have been good at any preaching of the China Communist Party. The open questions, for example the fans after the international future beyond the 1st FCS, were strangely asked.
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However, the Chinese table tennis association is said to have fully supported the decision fans for the 1. FCS. Perhaps you are also happy in Beijing that you have put the superstar that has not always been easy to care for in the German province. Fan has officially said goodbye to the world rankings and the WTT tournaments in order to give the Chinese offspring more space-which has so far only succeeded in mediocre. The exceptional player received a return option; World Championships and Olympic Games will probably still be open to him. You don’t know exactly. Fan Zhendong to have said it is only 28. He is probably the best player in the world. Timo Boll, just in retirement, played international tournaments at the tender age of 43.
Either way: the German school sports halls are humming. Tickets go away like lucky cookies, most of them in Chinese or Chinese -born hands; A share of 70 to 80 percent appears realistic. The German audience may have to be a little surprised and change. But ultimately everyone can benefit from it.
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