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The 19-year-old World Cup debutant Kay Stumper (here against Croatia in the Round of 16) put the German team on the road to success with his win
Photo: Liu Xu / 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.
Dang Qiu (Borussia Dusseldorf), Benedikt Duda (TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt) and Kay Stumper (Borussia Dusseldorf) beat France 3-2 in the quarter-finals on Friday and, just like the German women the day before, turned in a 0-2 draw against Hong Kong. Residue.
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.
World Cup debutant Stumper initiates the turning point
The two young Lebrun brothers are the faces of the French team.
At the start, Duda lost 2:3 against 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.
In Chengdu, Duda and Stumper will play alongside Qiu because the top players Timo Boll and Dimitrij Ovtcharov are missing due to a lack of training and Patrick Franziska was also unable to play because of his second fatherhood.
see/dpa
