Victory against Dusseldorf
Table Tennis Champions League: Saarbrücken triumphs
The table tennis players of 1. FC Saarbrücken have won the Champions League. photo
© Marius Becker/dpa
The German national player Patrick Franziska celebrates the first triumph in the Champions League with 1. FC Saarbrücken – opponents Düsseldorf mourn the missed match balls.
Table tennis player Patrick Franziska didn’t need many words to classify 1. FC Saarbrücken’s historic victory in a dramatic Champions League final.
“Ever since I moved to Saarbrücken in 2016, it has always been my dream to win this big title,” said the German international after the triumph against defending champions Borussia Düsseldorf of the German Press Agency.
For Saarbrücken it was the first premier class title, while Düsseldorf was narrowly denied the seventh trick. “The crux of the matter today was the match balls we had. If one of them had gone on the table, then we would be in a different position now. It was a very close game,” summed up Düsseldorf coach Danny Heister, who is without Timo Boll (shoulder problems). had to.
“Golden Match” decides
In the so-called “Golden Match”, which was used for the first time ever in a Champions League final, the guests had made the title perfect in front of 1100 fans in the sold-out ARAG CenterCourt with 2:1 set wins. The extra time premiere had become necessary because Saarbrücken had previously won the second leg in Düsseldorf 3:2 and had equalized (5:5) after the first leg defeat (2:3).
“We’ve lost to Düsseldorf so many times, today we were able to take advantage of the moment,” said Franziska, who played well and won all three of his duels. “The key to our success was my win in the second game of the evening against Anton Källberg, against whom I lost the first two sets,” he explained. “After a change of tactics I was able to turn this game around and win 6:5 in the fifth set.”
Darko Jorgic had brought the decisive victory after 4:35 hours. “I’m really proud of all of us, especially Patrick Franziska,” said the 24-year-old and explained: “He’s a good captain, he fights for us and he brought his games home for us. That made us feel we felt more confident and were able to score the decisive points.”