Table tennis: Dang Qiu after defeating Benedikt Duda for the first time German champion

Enlarge image

Dang Qiu

Photo: IMAGO/Revierfoto

A week after jumping into the top 10 in the world rankings, table tennis national player Dang Qiu also won the German championship in singles for the first time.

The 25-year-old from Borussia Düsseldorf won the final in Saarbrücken with 4:1 sets against his doubles partner Benedikt Duda from TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt.

Both together had defended their championship title in doubles just a few hours earlier.

The new German champion in women's singles is Sabine Winter from TSV Schwabhausen, who won her final against world number seven Han Ying (KTS Zamek Tarnobrzeg/Poland) with 4:2 sets.

"I'm very proud, because the championship title is very difficult to win in Germany," said Qiu after his success in an interview with sportdeutschland.tv.

The new German individual champion comes from a table tennis family: father Qiu Jianxin became student world champion in 1987, Qiu's mother Chen Hong was also active for the Chinese national team.

Qiu, who was born in Nürtingen, is the only German national player to play the penholder style, which is particularly widespread in East Asia - and has been doing so more and more successfully of late.

Last beat Ovtcharov himself

"Dang Qiu is the man of the hour," said sports director Richard Prause from the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB).

“We couldn't have foreseen that he would take such a development within two years.

He used the momentum for himself, but also honestly earned the title.« A week ago, Qiu had won a tournament of the new World Table Tennis Tour (WTT) in Lima for the first time and was among the top ten in the world advanced.

In the final he defeated the Olympic bronze medalist Dimitrij Ovtcharov.

The former world number one Ovtcharov returned from the Peruvian capital with a bad cold and therefore had to give up at the German championships on Saturday after his first round victory because of illness.

The 41-year-old record champion Timo Boll, who recently won the club title with Borussia Düsseldorf together with Qiu, has not taken part in German championships since winning the 13th title in 2019 due to scheduling reasons.

cev/dpa/sid