(by Steve Hopkins)
The 9th men’s Masters event concluded over the weekend. The winner, Germany’s Benedikt Duda, the only player except for Ovtcharov to repeat as a Series Winner (Dimitrij Ovtcharov has won three times).
This week, the event progressed almost exactly by seed. The top 7 seeds all advanced, and the only early upset was No. 9 over No. 8 (Michael Servaty defeating Kirill Fadeev). The Quarterfinals then matched the top four seeds against seeds 5, 6, 7 and 9 and the top four all advanced. In the Semis, top-seeded Omar Assar cruised past fourth-seeded Tobias Hippler 4-1, and second-seeded Benedikt Duda overcame third-seeded Steffen Mengel for a tight 4-3 victory.
The Final was a seven-game minor upset with Duda (World No. 39) defeating Assar (World No. 38) 4-3 (11, -11, -4, 4, 6, -6, 8).
The Dusseldorf Masters series have been held since mid-June. This is the tenth event overall (nine were men’s events and 1 was a female event).
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