Chat GPT, the famous artificial intelligence, might have made it more exciting. The text machine, on the other hand, which (no joke!) has been automatically converting bare numbers down to the district league into wordy match reports on the results pages of the German Table Tennis Association since 2021, probably still has to work on its prose. At least, introductory sentences like the following one about the promotion-decisive season finale in the third women’s Bundesliga South do not pose any immediate danger even for hypertensive patients: “When Theresa Faltermaier drove her singles home on Sunday afternoon, the game in the 3rd Bundesliga Women South was over after about 2 Hours of play ended.”
With collegial greetings to the machine: There might have been a few small details that would have been worth mentioning in such a report. Theresa Faltermaier, for example: If the young player from the host TSV Schwabhausen II drove anything home that Sunday, she is guaranteed to have done it by bike. Because the daughter of a former international is only 14 and not yet of the age to drive. Nevertheless, she has achieved a positive individual record in this women’s third division team, a 7:4.
Kolbermoor only relies on a women’s team, Schwabhausen is working on the contrast program
Secondly, the duel at the end of the season was a derby, a 6:0 against the second representation of the neighbor TuS Fürstenfeldbruck. Thirdly, this runaway victory secured the championship title for TSV Schwabhausen II and thus promotion to the second Bundesliga, where the club – fourthly – will never appear. As reported, his entire table tennis department will soon be moving to TSV Dachau, which those responsible are hoping for better structures. In addition to the first division, Dachau is now also getting a new second division team from the small neighboring community.
For the quartet consisting of the Ukrainian Veronika Matiunina, the Hungarian Orsolya Feher, the Dutch Emine Ernst and Faltermaier, this must have been their last rallies last Sunday in the old jersey with the Schwabhauser wolf crest. Matiunina, the 16-year-old, who joined the squad at very short notice because of the war in her home country, will now leave the club again and at Feher you never know whether she will also be used in Schwabhausen’s first team.
This first division ensemble around national player Sabine Winter still has its historical last strokes in the old jersey ahead of it. On the first Friday in May, the playoff quarter-finals against SV Böblingen start with defensive legend Qianhong Gotsch and young national player Annett Kaufmann. “Unpleasant opponents for us,” says club coach Alexander Yahmed, “I’m curious myself.” The first leg (7 p.m.) takes place at home, the second leg two days later (2 p.m.) away.
The second Bavarian first division club, SV-DJK Kolbermoor, is also in the quarter-finals. He starts on the same Friday at TSV Langstadt, the second leg on Sunday (2 p.m.) will be played in Kolbermoor.
Kolbermoor will of course not integrate his department into a neighboring club after the season, but that’s not the only difference between the clubs at the moment. While in the men’s amateur division both have a decent base – Kolbermoor has five teams in play after a few cancellations, Schwabhausen four – the club from the district of Rosenheim has exactly one team for women: the one in the first division, twice won the German Cup, but has been without a foundation since the second team withdrew.
Before the start of the playoffs, one personality is also certain in the first division ensemble: Mercedesz Nagyvaradi is leaving, Tin-Tin Ho is coming
Even in Schwabhausen, coach Yahmed notes that Corona has generally destroyed a lot in the clubs, but his club is still working on the contrast program with five women’s teams spread across the leagues. “The second team will be very young,” he explains, which spoke for promotion. “They’re going to have to take a huge step in their development and they need it. They have to recognize their limitations so they can see what they’re working for.” Promotion guarantee Matiunina will be replaced by Melanie Merk, also 16, who last played for Langweid in the second division.
In the first team, too, one person is certain: Mercedesz Nagyvaradi will leave the club. “It’s a shame,” says the coach, “she had an offer she just couldn’t refuse.” In place of the popular Hungarian, who is returning to her homeland, the club have signed 24-year-old penholder Tin-Tin Ho. The Englishwoman is number 135 in the world rankings and has already been nominated for the next Olympic Games, which is why, according to Yahmed, she wants to “really step on the gas” in the Bundesliga after her medical studies – then for TSV Dachau. Nagyvaradi can only try the same in the playoffs for TSV Schwabhausen.
