World Cup preparations: Ovtcharov won the table tennis cup

Neu-Ulm. If the successes in the preparatory tournaments before the most important tournament of the year are a good sign, Dimitrij Ovtcharov can expect a great World Cup in South Africa. Exactly 14 days before the start of the individual competitions in Durban (May 20-28), the world number 15 secured himself. unbeaten victory in the Table Tennis Cup, the TT Cup’s powered by World Cup preparatory tournament. Even before he won individual bronze two years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, when he also won silver with the team, Ovcharov had won in the last preparatory tournament.

The 2023 small but great World Cup preparation tournament at the TTC Neu-Ulm Arena in Pfaffenhofen featured German World Cup starters Ovtcharov and Benedikt Duda (Bergneustadt) and Swedish World Cup runner-up Truls Mregardh and former EC. third Tiago Apolonia (Portugal) very high class manned. It was a welcome competitive test for the four players who are out for this weekend’s TTBL playoffs.

Ovtcharov wins ahead of Mregardh: “Wins give me confidence”

In order to get as much competition practice as possible, the world-class quartet played their winners and runners-up in six matches in an all-vs-all format. In the end, Dimitrij Ovtcharov deservedly rose to the top level of the podium. The two-time European champion did not give his opponents a chance in all three individual games today. The long-awaited duel between Ovtcharov, from Neu-Ulm, and his teammate, world number seven Truls Mregardh, went unchallenged for the German, who had earlier beaten ITTF ranked 59th Tiago Apolonia and his national team 3-0. colleague Benedikt Duda in check 3:1. Ovtcharov was happy with his performance in the World Cup test: “The last few weeks I wasn’t happy with the results. Despite a few decent games, I lacked consistency. That’s why I had thought about it a lot, a lot with the national team coach Jrg Rokopf and our video analysis specialist Sascha Nimtz. Last week I changed a few things in the pass – and in my comeback game and also tweaked my material a bit because I had a lot of problems with double fish balls, which is also used I’ve been feeling good since the tweak and today I had good control again and a lot of power in my games against Truls, Tiago and Benne, which I was able to win relatively clearly.” Dimitrij Ovtcharov hopes that his tournament victory is a good sign for the World Cup in Durban: “Although it was not an official tournament with world ranking points, of course the victory is still valuable. It reminds me a little of the previous situation. I also won my game at the Olympics in the preparatory tournament in Düsseldorf and then I flew to Tokyo with a good feeling . Three wins today showed me that I’m in a good mood and that I have to keep working for the next ten days. have done the last eight, nine days. Three wins give me confidence – and confidence is very important in table tennis!”

Benedikt Duda is third and celebrates the mediation decision

Second in the table tennis cup was Sweden’s World Championship hopeful Mregardh, who only blew against Ovtcharov, but kept Duda and Apolonia away. World number 32. Benedikt Duda was third, as he beat Portugal’s Apolonia 3-1 with his best performance of the day and thus celebrated an amicable decision in the World Cup preparation tournament, after early problems against Mregardh and Ovtcharov: “The tournament started quite rotten for me against Mregardh today” It was a bit better against Dima and then I played really well in the third game against Tiago. Everything is there in training, but I’m missing the rhythm of the race at the moment. That’s why the tournament with a lot of games was very good today and I was able to improve from match to match. I’m trying to play a lot in training until the World Cup so that it gets better every practice until the World Cup.”

Score
Dmitry Ovtcharov GER – James Apollonia POR 3:0 (6,8,4)
Benedikt Duda GER – Truls Mregardh SWE 0:3 (-8,-1,-8)
Dimitrij Ovtcharov GER – Benedikt Duda GER 3:1 (5,7,-7,6)
Truls Mregardh SWE – Tiago Apolonia 3:1 (7,4,-7,10)
Dimitrij Ovtcharov GER – Truls Mregardh SWE 3:1 (4,-3,7,7)
Benedict Duda – GER – 3:1 (-10,10,7,8)
final result
1. Dimitrij Ovtcharov GER 3:0 games, 9:2 sets
2. Truls Mregardh SWE 2-1 games, 7-4 sets
3. Benedikt Duda GER 1:2 games, 4:7 sets
4. Tiago Apolonia POR 0:3 games, 2:9 sets

Links
www.tt-cup.com