(by Steve Hopkins)

Last Thursday, the top two teams in the German Bundesliga faced off with Borussia Dusseldorf taking on TTC Rhon Sprudel Fulda-Maberzell.  The winner would be first in the standings, and Dusseldorf was set to play without Timo Boll (who is not the powerful figure that he was for two decades, but he adds a level of depth to the squad that separates them from other teams).

In their match, Anton Kallberg landed the first blow for Dusseldorf with his 3-1 win over Ruwen Filus.  Dang Qiu then stepped up and dominated Fulda’s Cheng-Jui Kao.  And the surprise of the match was Dusseldorf’s replacement for Boll, Borga Haug.  Haug is a young Norwegian player who has not made a deep run into the rankings – but on this day, he was strong enough to beat Dimitrij Ovtcharov in 3 straight games.  Dusseldorf visits Fulda, and beats them on their home court to hold the Number One spot in the TTBL.

Both teams have had great seasons thus far.  Borussia Dusseldorf is now 9-2, Fulda is now 8-3, and Ochsenhausen and Bad Konigshofen are both 7-4.  In the TTBL, only four teams make the playoff, so three matches remaining until the tournament, these are the four teams in the best position to advance.  There are other teams in contention, as three currently have a 6-5 record: Saarbrucken, Werder Bremen, and ASC Grunwettersbach.

We’ll continue to follow the action.

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