Hi guys
I remember in or around 2010-2011 Germany had 5 top 20 players with Boll, Ovtcharov, Suss, Baum and Steger. Now still two players, Boll and Ovtcharov. But it seems like Germany is not producing any new talents, like France and Sweden are doing. Do you think in maybe 10 years, when Ovtcharov is almost 40, the German glory will be gone? Or will they stand up and produce many new talents? I don't know what is going wrong there at the moment. Anyone any insight?
Good observation so far. Your questions are not so easy to answer and quite a few people in Germany at the DTTB (Deutscher Tischtennis Bund = German tabletennis Association) are quite concerned about this as well, so you're definitely not far from right.
Of course one could say, compared to other Nations were still doing pretty good but still it could also be much much better.
IMHO The time period you've been writing about has been exceptionally good for Germany and i think it has actually been the best period of Germany ever, so it actually doesn't make a lot of sense taking that time as a reference.
See, i can remember times when things were different. In the pre-Timo-Boll-era Germany wasn't as good as it is now. Germany had a few good players every once in a while but none have EVER been as good Timo is.
Most succesful German Player up to then was Eberhard Schöler and that was waaaaaaaayyyy back. And second best was Jörg Rosskopf whose best WRL position was No#4.
Actually winning the Gold medal in the WTTC 1989 in Doubles came pretty unexpected to some.
You must understand to that time (end of eighties - early nineties) many German players were looking up to Swedish tabletennis, hungarian tabletennis, Yugoslavian tabletennis and a few more.
So compared to pre-Boll-era were still doing good.
But you're quite right if Dima gets old there doesn't seem a lot players that could follow his path. But certainly i could be wrong here.
Franziska can be in the top 30
if he stays healthy.
Mengel has been playing very inconsistent and some say his win over Wang Hao was just a lucky shot.
I could be wrong but i don't expect very much from Patrick Baum as well.
Filus, Walther and Duda have reached their max level which was actually better than many would have expected. And Dang Qiu isn't there yet.
Now looking at the following generations there's not a lot in sight. We would have to see how good Gerrit Engemann, Dennis Klein and Jannik Xu will develop and Kay Stumper is still a bit young.
But if we keep Dima in mind, i would say: anything is possible!
[Emoji2]
He's been proving so many people wrong. Not very many had high hopes in him since he didn't have the talent and fine touch as Timo Boll, but he's a working horse who kicked all non-believers in the nuts by reaching this high in WRL.
So yeah, i would say it's not all bad...