(by Steve Hopkins) Most table tennis fans are familiar with Timo Boll’s team, Borussia Dusseldorf, and its long history of success in the German Budesliga.  And in the US, many have been following another German team, Liebherr Ochsenhausen, as they have USA’s Kanak Jha and the other great player from this hemisphere, Brazil’s Hugo Calderano.  But […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Entering the final few weeks, the Butterfly-sponsored Borussia Dusseldorf squad is securely installed as the top seed.  They need one more win to officially clinch the top position – they are 8 points ahead of second place in the standings, having lost only one match since December.  Dusseldorf stumbled against Ochsenhausen in […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Two of the leading contenders met today with Ochsenhausen winning 3-2 over Dusseldorf.  Dusseldorf was without Timo Boll in the line-up – Timo has been suffering from a sore back.  They moved Anton Kallberg, currently the Bundesliga’s top scorer to the No. 1 position, moved Kristian Karlsson up to the No. 2 […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Timo Boll’s VLOG this week focused on his support of Germany’s Paralympic Players as they work to prepare for the Tokyo Paralympics later this year.  As a part of the video, he practices with Valentin Baus and Thomas Schmidberger, two of Germany’s top wheelchair players.  Boll, one of the World’s best able-bodied […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The South Korean Olympic Trials concluded last week.  Butterfly player Sangsu Lee (World No. 22) upset Jeoung Youngsik (World No. 13) to take the second team position.  Jan Woo-Jin (World No. 11) has already qualified by World Ranking. It is likely that Youngsik will be appointed to the third position, giving Korea a […]

(by Steve Hopkins) With the Rhode Island Table Tennis Club currently in operation with limited hours, we were initially hesitant about running a winter juniors group.  However, even with our sign up form going out while Rhode Island was in a state of lock-down, the class filled up in 4 days.  Here are some notes […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The Butterfly-sponsored Borussia Dusseldorf team continues to cruise in the Tischtennis Bundesliga, Germany’s professional table tennis league.  Over the weekend, Dusseldorf blanked TTC RhonSprudel Fulda-Maberzell 3-0 and last week they topped TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt 3-0 as well. The Dusseldorf squad’s run over the last two months places them securely atop the standings […]

(by Steve Hopkins) When Maze was in his prime, he was one of the most exciting players in the world.  His personal motto appears to be Never Give Up – fighting to prolong points and as you can see from this video, often hanging around long enough to change the result. Michael Maze continues to […]

(by Steve Hopkins) With the Bundesliga in full swing in Germany, Liebherr Ochsenhausen has regained sole possession of second place with their third win in a row.  *It will take a much longer streak to catch Timo Boll’s Dusseldorf Team (which remains undefeated in 2021 thus far), but all that the Ochsenhausen team needs to […]