(by Steve Hopkins)

In recent years, U.S. fans have followed Borussia Dusseldorf (with Timo Boll), and over the last year many have also been following Liebherr Ochsenhausen (who have added USA’s  Kanak Jha to their talented roster).  A few weeks ago these two teams each advanced to the Final of the German Cup – where Dusseldorf won 3-1.

Timo Boll’s Borussia Dusseldorf team won again on Sunday, staying undefeated in 2021 (including 3 wins to close out the first half of the year and win the German Cup, and three “second half” wins.  The most recent victory was a 3-1 win over Bad Konigshofen with Bad’s Bastian Steger scoring the only win (3-0 over Ricardo Walther).  Timo Boll won twice, a tight 3-2 win over Kilian Ort, and a 3-1 win to seal the victory over Steger.

TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen righted the ship today.  They had lost three matches in a row and had fallen into a large five-way tie in points among all of the second place teams.  Ochsenhausen beat Muhlhausen 3-1 – after losing to the same team just a week ago.  In the upset win for Muhlhausen, Ochsenhausen had losses by Calderano, Gauzy, and Jha.  Today, Calderano won both of his matches (a 3-1 win over Jancarik and a 3-0  win over Habesohn), and Gauzy won 3-1 over Habesohn.  The lone loss for Ochsenhausen was when Jha fell to Ionescu 0-3. Ochsenhausen is back on track, and securely in the top 4 for the end-of-year playoff, and perhaps as importantly for them, Calderano is back on track.  Calderano took a break from one of the matches last week after having lost 4 of 6 of his singles matches in 2021.  Today, Calderano was 2-0, which is what this team needs from him as they try to reel in first place Borussia Dusseldorf.