Historic low in rankings
German table tennis says goodbye to world class
This hasn’t happened since August 2004. There are no German table tennis players in the top 10 in the new men’s world rankings. Because European champion Dang Qiu is losing too many points, because Dimitrij Ovtcharov is struggling and the legend Timo Boll is struggling to catch up.
Germany’s table tennis fans are likely to rub their eyes when they look at the new men’s world rankings: for the first time in almost 19 years, no ace from the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB) is among the top 10 in the world. The best German is veteran Dimitrij Ovtcharov (Neu-Ulm) in twelfth position. The new leader is Chinese World Cup runner-up Wang Chuqin, who replaced his compatriot and world champion Fan Zhendong as number one after 142 weeks.
From national coach Jörg Roßkopf’s group of players, European champion Dang Qiu (Düsseldorf) was the only DTTB player among the top ten. However, the penholder player slipped from ninth place to 14th place due to the loss of many points from the previous year. The third German in the top 20 is double World Cup third-place finisher Patrick Franziska from Champions League winners 1. FC Saarbrücken in 19th position.
Jörg Roßkopf paved the way
The last time no DTTB player was in the top ten of the world rankings was in August 2004. At that time, today’s record European champion Timo Boll (Düsseldorf) was not included in the elite circle for the second month in a row after the left-hander had climbed into the top 10 at the beginning of 2002. Between January 2003 and February 2018, Boll reached the top of the world rankings four times. Due to his months-long injury break, the DM record winner is only ranked 35th.
In addition to Boll, Ovtcharov also belonged to the select club of top 10 players from summer 2012. The former Russian legionnaire was also number one in the world for two months at the beginning of 2018.
As the third player from the current German national team squad, Qiu made it into the prestigious circle of top 10 players for the first time a year ago. The first German in the top 10 of the world rankings after the introduction of a computer ranking in the first half of the 1990s was the former European Championship singles champion and former double world champion Roßkopf.
