Table Tennis World Cup
Missed a medal: World Cup exit for German table tennis team
At the World Team Championships in South Korea, Ovtcharov and the German team were eliminated in the quarterfinals. photo
© Marius Becker/dpa
For the German table tennis stars, the team world championship in South Korea is already over in the quarter-finals. The dream of the third World Cup final in a row ends surprisingly clearly.
Dang Qiu (Borussia Düsseldorf), Dimitrij Ovtcharov (TTC Neu-Ulm) and Patrick Franziska (1. FC Saarbrücken) lost 3-0 against Taiwan and missed out on a medal at the World Championships or Olympic Games for the first time since 2016. At the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments, national coach Jörg Roßkopf’s team reached the final against China.
Individual European champion Dang Qiu lost in five sets on Friday in Busan against 42-year-old Bundesliga professional Chuang Chih-Yuan from TTC Fulda-Maberzell. Ovtcharov then gave up a 2-0 set lead against Taiwan’s top player Lin Yun-Ju (2:3). In the third match, Franziska lost to 19-year-old Kao Cheng-Jui in 1:3 sets.