(by Steve Hopkins, photo ETTU)
If you were drafting an all-star squad from the best players in the team of the in the world, you’d have a tough time picking a better team than the one Saarbrucken has assembled. Fan Zhendong, Truls Moregard, Patrick Franziska, and Darko Jorgic is a formidable group of European Champions, a World Champion, and a German Champion (for the German-based team). All of them have big-game resumes winning on big stages. And even as Jorgic has announced is move away next year, the team has already added Hugo Calderano to reload in the next ETTU Champions League and German TTBL seasons. That said, in the second leg of the ETTU Quarterfinals, French team Hennebont TT presented a formidable challenge.
Hennebont is one of two strong French teams to have made the Quarterfinals (the Montpellier team has the Lebrun brothers). And with the rise of 19 year old Chinese star Wen Ruibo, Hennebont’s strong roster of Simon Gauzy, Vladimir Sidorenko, and Lev Katsman had made things interesting for fans, and uncomfortable for top seeded Saarbrucken.
In their first meeting, Ruibo was unable to attend and the matchups went about as expected with Saarbrucken’s Fan Zhendong topping Simon Gauzy in a tight 3-2 match, Moregard outclassing Sidorenko 3-1, and Franziska winning three straight (close) games over Katsman. However, this second leg was different. With Wen Ruibo in the mix, the matchups shifted and things got closer. And while Fan Zhendong won the first two games in the opening match, once Ruibo found his stride, he managed to win two straight and then dominated the tie-breaker 6-1. Moregard then outlasted Gauzy 3-1 to even the match score at 1-1. Jorgic and Sidorenko traded blows in an all-out power versus power match that went to Darko Jorgic 3-1. And in the fourth match, Simon Gauzy and Fan Zhendong found themselves in a tiebreaker, just like the last time these two teams played. Only this time, the two players were 5-5 in the tiebreaker when Gauzy played a backhand down the line, and Fan looped the ball long. The match was now tied 2-2 with Truls Moregard to face Lev Katsman. Moregard dominated the first game, and won the second game 12-10. Katsman won the third game, but it was all Moregard from that point forward – building an early lead and then with the two players purposefully playing longer rallies to entertain the crowd. Top seed Saarbrucken moves on to the Final 4 where they will face Polish team KS Orien Bogoria Grodzisk Mazowiecki. Grodzisk is a perennial contender in the Polish Superleague where they have won 10 times – but their squad of Bodowski, Redzimski, and Gionis will be big underdogs in the next round.
The other half of the draw has second seeded Borussia Dusselorf already into the Semifinals ready to face likely opponent Alliance Nimes Montpellier. When Dusseldorf won its first Quarterfinal match over Muhlhausen, USA’s Kanak Jha defeated Lin Gaoyuan, Qiu Dang topped Mengel, and Kallberg defeated Freitas for a 3-0 Dusseldorf win. The second leg was also an easy win for Dusseldorf with Jha topping Ionescu and Kallberg defeating Muller for the 2 points needed to advance). The Montpellier team does not have a well-known third player (Antoine Hachard), but with both Felix Lebrun ranked No. 6 in the World, and recently crowned Euro 16 Cup Champion Alexis Lebrun at No. 14, the squad is capable of beating any team.
The ETTU Champions is scheduled between other matches and major events, so the next rounds of action are going to be later in the Spring. Updates will come when the action resumes.
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