Kilian Ort can make his way to what is probably the biggest away game in his club’s cup history on foot this Wednesday. This is practical, but not necessarily all good news. His TSV Bad Königshofen has reached the quarter-finals against Düsseldorf, the table tennis first division team is still one step away from the Final Four. Like most top German players, Ort also lives in Düsseldorf, not far from the German Table Tennis Center (DTTZ), but in normal times he would at least be there much less often; He would travel to World Cups, to league games, and sometimes to his home club. Ort is currently far away from all of this.
The 27-year-old will only come to watch on Wednesday. It is the second time that Bad Königshofen is in the quarter-finals, the first time being a 3-0 defeat at Werder Bremen in 2017. Ort lost in three sets against Bastian Steger. Steger, 42, has long since moved to TSV and he will lead the Lower Franconians on Wednesday against the big favorites. There are only three of the team during the entire preliminary round because Ort is out for so long.
The problems began at the end of January, a herniated disc, which was initially treated with injections. He underwent surgery at the beginning of September, but the incident returned. He hasn’t held a bat in his hand since the summer. Now, says Ort, his everyday life looks like this: he practices almost every day in the weight room, with the athletic trainer at the DTTZ or the rehabilitation trainer at the Olympic training center, as well as physiotherapy. It’s not as if such phases are new.
Injuries keep getting in the way
He has always had ups and downs, and the downs were mostly due to injuries. In 2015/16 he missed almost an entire season due to shoulder pain, the cause of which was never found. His hometown club even became second division champions at the time, but Ort’s contribution was simply that he had himself lined up game after game because that gave the team an advantage when it came to line-up – only to then give away his singles: 0:11, 0:11, 0:11. He gave up 16 games without a fight. At the time it was questionable whether the 19-year-old could have a career at all. “When you run from doctor to doctor and no one can find anything, you start to wonder,” he said later. “It wasn’t an easy time.”
But it continued. He achieved great victories in the league and climbed to 48th place in the world rankings, but injuries kept coming in the way of the highly gifted, athletic offensive game. Last season he missed several times with foot pain. If it hadn’t been for his back, he could probably have played in the European Team Championships in Malmö. “It’s all hypothetical,” he replies – such thoughts wouldn’t get him anywhere. “Everything is always good for something, and maybe in 30 or 40 years I’ll know what it was for.” He gets a lot of support from his girlfriend Loan, who is also a table tennis professional and can tolerate bad moods, and also from the club, which gives him “backing”.
Incidentally, TSV Bad Königshofen won the last game in Düsseldorf, but that is only of limited use as an omen: Steger and Martin Allegro were injured at the time. The only fit guy who first defeated Kay Stumper and then Timo Boll in a breathtaking match was called: Kilian Ort. That was exactly ten months ago to the day. Shortly afterwards the disc problems began. When could he return? Nobody knows that, he says. But he will give everything to fight back again.
