Laura Paar had to listen to the same question over and over again last Sunday: Is what was happening in front of her eyes possibly too emotional for her? The heavily pregnant team manager of TC Aschheim kept smiling away at the question, “no, no,” she said, “my kid can handle all these match tiebreaks well.”
What happened on the TC Aschheim facility in the derby against the MTTC Iphitos was indeed hard to beat in terms of excitement. The decision about relegation from the second women’s tennis Bundesliga was only made in the last double – in the match tiebreak. The women from Aschheim had the better end: Gabriela Lee (Romania) and Adrienne Nagy (Hungary) beat Iphitos’ Italian duo Deborah Chiesa/Laura Mair 10:8. Almost all games of the final derby were very close, in six of the nine games the decision was only made in the match tiebreak. The experienced Iphitos coach Uli Sprenglewski spoke of an “incredibly high level for both teams” and described the match as “one of the best Bundesliga games I’ve ever seen”.
The final table of the second Bundesliga makes it clear how tight it was in the table basement this season. Four of the eight teams ended the season with 4:10 points, the decision on the respective placement had to be made in the individual games. And since Iphitos was missing a won match to stay in the league. 24 wins and 39 losses meant eighth and last place in the table, Aschheim’s 25 wins and 38 losses were enough for sixth place. “I think we’re safe,” said Paar, there will probably not be more than two relegations.
“We missed one point somewhere along the way,” Sprenglewski said. He classified the final and decisive defeat in Aschheim in the “unfortunate” category. One could not blame him for this classification. Four of the six match tiebreaks went to Aschheim, and at 13:15 Chiesa against Lee in the duel between the two number one women, the Italian missed two match points. In the end there was a 3:6 defeat – and with it the transition to the regional league. For Iphitos it was the first relegation since 2014, since then the MTTC women’s team had played continuously in Germany’s second division.
Grün-Weiß Luitpoldpark remains fifth in the second division
Sprenglewski does not yet know how the regional league will continue in terms of personnel, “it’s all still too fresh”. But he knows that he has to put together a “reasonable” team one floor down: “You can’t just play there with the youngsters, that’s not possible.” And in general, for a club like Iphitos, the objective “basically always” must be “to play upwards”. The regional league can become an opportunity for the younger Iphitos players who are currently playing in the Bavarian league. The new league affiliation gives some of them the opportunity to gain match practice in a higher league. Or, as Sprenglewski puts it: “dig into it”.
Grün-Weiß Luitpoldpark Munich is one of the four teams with 4:10 points. Despite the 6-3 defeat against Iphitos on Friday, the Munich team stayed fifth in the league with a 5-4 win at TC Leonberg on Sunday. If Luitpoldpark’s second women’s team, which currently occupies the penultimate place in the regional league, succeeds, there will be another city derby against Iphitos next season.
