World Cup in China
3:2 after 0:2: German table tennis team in the World Cup semifinals
Beat Frenchman Jules Rolland 3-1: Kay Stumper. photo
© Xu Bingjie/XinHua/dpa
The German men’s table tennis national team has reached the semi-finals of the Team World Championships in China and has secured at least the bronze medal.
The German men’s table tennis national team has reached the semi-finals of the Team World Championships in China and has secured at least the bronze medal.
Dang Qiu (Borussia Düsseldorf), Benedikt Duda (TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt) and Kay Stumper (Borussia Düsseldorf) beat France 3-2 in the quarter-finals and, like the German women the day before, came from a 2-0 deficit against Hong Kong.
In the decisive fifth game, Duda defeated the only 16-year-old Felix Lebrun in 3-0 sets. The semi-final opponent on Saturday is now South Korea, just like at the 2018 World Cup.
The two young Lebrun brothers are the faces of the French team. At the start, Duda lost 2:3 to 19-year-old Alexis Lebrun. After that, Felix Lebrun even beat the individual European champion Dang Qiu 3:1. But Germany’s 19-year-old World Cup debutant Stumper brought Germany coach Jörg Roßkopf’s team back with a 3-1 win over Jules Rolland. Dang Qiu against Alexis Lebrun and Duda against Felix Lebrun made the semifinals perfect.
From a German point of view, this continues a long series of great team successes. The team reached the final at the 2018 World Cup. She won the European Championship title in 2017, 2019 and 2021, as well as Olympic medals in 2016 and 2021. At this world championship in Chengdu even the top players Timo Boll and Dimitrij Ovtcharov are missing because of a lack of training and Patrick Franziska because he became a father for the first time.