Table tennis – Bad Königshofen remains behind playoff ranks – Sport

The past match day in the table tennis Bundesliga seemed like a painting for TSV Bad Königshofen. All the other games had already been played last weekend, and the results had given the latecomers from Lower Franconia a unique opportunity for Monday evening: Thanks to the defeat of neighbor TSV Mühlhausen (1:3 against Bremen) on Sunday, a win at the penultimate table would have been enough to to climb a playoff spot for the first time. It would have been the preliminary culmination of that remarkable development, with which Bad Königshofen, after initial worries about relegation, had recently fought its way into the field of pursuit of the leader Borussia Düsseldorf – and that largely in the previous year’s line-up, i.e. without the help of the world number 22. Yukiya Uda from Japan, who, as a supposed top transfer, had scored rather modestly in the first appearances for TSV with 2:7 victories.

Unfortunately, the hosts Grenzau were also on the upswing recently – and used their home advantage in a hall that was difficult to play in, in which Düsseldorf had already lost, to climb to third place with a 3-1 win, the first non-relegation zone. From the point of view of the Lower Franconia, the decisive factor was probably the defeat of Kilian Ort, who was actually in good form, against Maciej Kubik from Grenzau, who won 13:11 in the fifth set shortly before his 20th birthday – in the fourth round Ort had saved two match balls, in the fifth four himself forgive. Grenzaus Taiwanese Feng Yi-Hsin, also only 20, had a great day against Filip Zeljko and Bastian Steger (who had previously equalized against Patrick Baum) and prevailed in four sets each. “There are situations in which you get angry because the ball bounces differently than usual,” explained Steger, which shouldn’t detract from Grenzau’s performance. The fight for the playoffs will be open until the end, “there’s nothing lost”.