Dimitrij OVTCHAROV has won the third edition of the Duesseldorf Masters one week after his success at the second tournament. With a hard-fought victory the world number eleven withstood the Egyptian Omar ASSAR’s pressure in seven games final.
The fourth tournament of the Masters series at the ARAG CenterCourt will be streamed live again next week by Sportdeutschland.TV Borussia-TV and tischtennis.de.
Timo BOLL at the premiere event and now twice in a row Dimitrij OVTCHAROV this is the prominent list of winners of the Duesseldorf Masters after three appearances. This week a total of 14 starters took up the race with a mixture of world stars as well as up-and-coming talents from the DTTB-U23 support squad and the German Table Tennis Boarding School (DTTI).
Even though yesterday in the quarter-finals U21 European Championship finalist Gerrit ENGEMANN seriously put the world number 27 Kanak JHA in trouble in the end the four top seeded players reached the semi-finals as expected.
The final was not a clear affair but after a close course Dimitrij OVTCHAROV dominated the seventh game clearly and deserved to win 11:6. The 2017 World Cup winner was satisfied:
“After a good start from me and a 2-0 lead it was a close match. But I have not always won clearly against Omar at the international level. I didn’t feel too safe today and therefore lost focus but he simply played without any mistakes. I always wanted to play fast but he wanted to play slow – that got me out of rhythm. It was a tough match but in the end I’m glad I brought it home.”
Assar on the other hand had a problem with the narrow defeat: “It was a great pity that I did not win. It was a very close match and I had my chances to win the match. Even though I lost by a narrow margin I am very happy to have played at this level again.”
Prior to this Dimitrij OVTCHAROV had once again held his own in the round of the best four in a new edition of the previous week’s final in the German duel with Dang QIU (Gruenwettersbach) with 4-1. But the Portugal Open winner took his defeat calmly and analysed:
“Dima and I played against each other for the third time in three weeks. We also train together very often and Dima has now adjusted very well to me. He was getting better and better into his rhythm and I wasn’t so good myself today and left a lot of balls lying around. Dima deserved to win 4-1.”
In the second semi final match the world number 28 Omar ASSAR kept America’s rising star JHA at bay in six games:
“Omar is a very safe player. I was not focused enough today and then it’s hard to beat him. He was the better player today and he’s rightfully entered the final.”
In the points ranking which is still not really meaningful after three tournaments OVTCHAROV is now in front with 110 points second is Dang QIU with the score of 70 ahead of Timo BOLL (50). The Duesseldorf Masters organized by Borussia Duesseldorf with the support of the German Table Tennis Federation is held almost weekly from June to August at the ARAG CenterCourt in a knockout system with up to 16 participants. The series will conclude with a final tournament with eight professionals for which five athletes will qualify by scoring points and three will receive a wildcard.
Duesseldorf Masters 3rd tournament (15 to 17 June)
RESULTS
Final June 17
Dimitrij Ovtcharov – Omar Assar EGY 4:3 (9 7 -10 -8 8 -8 6)
Semifinals June 17
Dimitrij Ovtcharov – Dang Qiu 4:1 (-7 6 7 8 5)
Kanak Jha USA – Omar Assar EGY 2:4 (-4 9 10 -4 -9 -8)
