(by Steve Hopkins, photo ITTFWorld)
Neu Ulm’s loaded team of Harimoto, Moregardh, and Ovtcharov narrowly escaped their home match against Borussia Dusseldorf today 3-2 earlier in the week. The result flipped on Sunday as Kallberg defeated Ovtcharov 3-2 and Qui defeated Harimoto 3-2 to give Dusseldorf a commanding lead. Neu Ulm then fought back with wins by Moregardh over Boll 3-2 and Harimoto over Kallberg 3-2. But in the deciding match, it was Qiu over Ovtcharov 3-1.
That left the series tied at 1-1 and the tie is then decided by a three on three match with one game played by each player – first to 2 wins. This “golden match” was the equivalent of Soccer’s Golden Goal – a super fast tie breaker that maximizes the action for the fans. And despite all three match-ups leaning to Neu Ulm’s advantage (by World Ranking), it was Kallberg who defeated Harimoto 13-11 and Qiu who topped Moregardh 11-8 to send Dusseldorf to the Final.
The other Semifinal match between Muhlhausen and Saarbrucken was less climactic. Saarbrucken won 3-1 in the first meeting. They repeated the same result on Sunday. Once again, Saarbrucken relied on Jorgic and Franziska to move forward – this time with Jorgic winning twice. The lone loss this week was was Muhlhausen’s Daniel Habesohn defeating Saarbrucket’s Takuya Jin 3-2.
Dusseldorf will face Saarbrucken for the European Champions League Title next week.
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