The final two rounds of Table Tennis Bundesliga’s first major tournament will begin on Sunday, Jan. 4. Tens of thousands of table tennis fans will flock to Ratiopharm Arena in Ulm, Germany, to watch some of the world’s top players at their absolute best. All eyes in that stadium are about to fixate on the little white ball that will cement one of four teams as this year’s Liebherr Cup champions.
For each of those four teams, hoisting the Liebherr Cup on Sunday would mean more than just a place in the Bundesliga’s history books. It would be one club’s first time winning this tournament. It would be another club’s second straight title after a tumultuous summer. It would be another team’s chance to establish itself as a leaguewide threat as it faces relegation, and it would be an immense catharsis for a club that fell just short last year.
The stakes couldn’t be any higher for these clubs, all of whom have something to prove, dream of and fight for on Sunday. But when those three matches end, only one of the following teams will celebrate with the Liebherr Cup in their hands:
The smell of champagne still lingers on TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen’s uniforms. The photos of their players with gold medals around their necks were taken only one year ago. The memories of Hugo Calderano, Simon Gauzy and Shunsuke Togami defeating 1. FC Saarbrücken - TT in the 2024-25 Liebherr Cup Finale are still fresh in the minds of table tennis fans all over Germany.
And yet, very little about last year’s Liebherr Cup championship team remains the same as it was when it celebrated then. Calderano and Gauzy have left the Bundesliga. Last year’s dominant club now ranks as the Bundesliga’s fourth seed. The other three teams in the running for this year’s trophy are circling the vulnerable Ochsenhausen, and they can smell blood from wounds that had not been open just one year ago.
But no club has kept itself afloat better than Ochsenhausen this tournament. At first glance, the departures of Calderano and Gauzy appeared to have stripped Ochsenhausen of its two best players. What it really did was give Togami a chance to step up as the team’s new leader. And he certainly has. Togami’s 11:1 (+10) individual record is the best in the league, and none of those losses came in the Liebherr Cup. He’s even brought Ochsenhausen back from matches they had no business winning, including a 2-1 comeback against Post SV Mühlhausen in the quarterfinals. This season has proven that as long as Togami takes the table, Ochsenhausen has a chance of winning.
This year, Andreas Levenko, Iulian Chirita, Tiago Abiodun and Leonardo Iizuka have joined Togami in Ochsenhausen’s quest for a repeat championship. The club acquired Levenko and Chirita over the offseason to replace their departed superstars, and Abiodun and Iizuka assume greater responsibility this season. They’ve done an impressive job living up to expectations in this tournament, which includes a match-sealing doubles win from Abiodun and Levenko against Mühlhausen.
Ochsenhausen does not have the same roster that brought it to the Liebherr Cup Final Four last year, but it still has the magic that won it the trophy. And for as fortunate as Ochsenhausen were last season, that magic will be put to the test in their semifinal match against a very dangerous, familiar foe.
At the same time Ochsenhausen lifted the Liebherr Cup into the air last year, the hearts of Saarbrücken's players dropped into the pits of their stomachs. That trophy could have been theirs. They were just one game away from Liebherr Cup immortality, which could have been achieved if a few more things had gone their way. But there’s nothing they can do about that now. They had their chance to end last year’s tournament with smiles on their faces, but they couldn’t take advantage of it. Instead, they sulked in defeat just a few feet away from the only team that played better than they did in that tournament.
Saarbrücken may have had one of the league’s best rosters, but, evidently, it was not a trophy-winning one. A big splash was in order. And as luck would have it, they shocked table tennis fans worldwide with the biggest splash a team could make: three-time Olympic gold medalist Fan Zhendong.
But how would a player like Fan Zhendong fare in the Bundesliga? It was a fair question to ask, given that Fan had never played a rally in the German table tennis league at the time. But Fan’s performance this season has proven that greatness can translate across all leagues, with seven wins and three losses so far.
Games and matches without Fan aren't any easier. Saarbrücken could send out team captain Patrick Franziska, who has a 7:2 individual record this season. In addition, the club could send out the undefeated Darko Jorgic, the only player who has triumphed over Shunsuke Togami so far this season.
Those players guided Saarbrücken to a Liebherr Cup Finale that they almost won last season. They’re returning to the Final Four one year later and are expected to bring Fan with them. They are out for blood this year. And when they face Ochsenhausen in the semifinals, they’ll have an opportunity to take sweet revenge on the team that took what could have been theirs last year.
Three of the four remaining teams in this year’s Liebherr Cup will compete in the Final Four for the second consecutive year. The other team is TTC RhönSprudel Fulda-Maberzell.
Although Fulda is the only remaining team to have watched last year’s Final Four instead of competing in it, the club has participated several times in the past. Fulda has even made it to the final match in 2014, 2015 and 2017, but it has never been the last team standing. Not once in the club’s history has it ever held the Liebherr Cup. Fulda's looking to change that, and it's got the talent to do so.
Most players don’t celebrate after facing Dimitrij Ovtcharov. Stars such as Andre Bertelsmeier and Kirill Gerassimenko definitely didn’t after playing him this season. Instead, they added more wins to Ovtcharov’s 6:4 individual record this season.
Ovtcharov hasn’t dominated alone this season. He’s got a new partner-in-crime in offseason acquisition Jonathan Groth, who has wasted no time establishing himself as one of the Bundesliga’s most dangerous players. He’s earned seven wins against the likes of Kristian Karlsson, Jo Yokotani and Ovidiu Ionescu so far this season. Now, he’s looking to secure a few more wins at the Liebherr Cup Final Four.
If it can win just two matches on Sunday, Fulda will hold the Liebherr Cup for the first time. That would make 2026 the year Fulda's fans will one day look back on with pride, instead of all those years their team finished as runners-up.
On paper, TTC OE Clarity-Tel.Syst. Bad Homburg doesn’t look like much of a threat. It’s the ninth seed in the league with a 4-7 record and a point differential of -7. None of its players rank among the league’s Top 10 this season. Bad Homburg appears more likely to be relegated than become the last team standing after a major tournament.
At least, that’s what Bad Homburg looks like.
This ninth-seed took down third-seeded Borussia Düsseldorf in a stunning quarterfinal upset. The team with no players inside the Bundesliga’s Top 10 is about to make its second straight Final Four appearance. The team fighting to stay alive in the Bundesliga is also fighting to become this year’s Liebherr Cup champions.
That’s thanks to Bad Homburg’s decision to sign two players: Jo Yokotani and Ivor Ban. Yokotani doesn’t have the same name recognition as Fan Zhendong, Dimitrij Ovtcharov or Shunsuke Togami, the top players for each of Bad Homburg’s potential Final Four opponents. But Yokotani’s got a knack for taking down top players. He holds a record of 9:6, which includes wins against stars such as Steffen Mengel and Adrien Rassenfosse. Yokotani’s star-slaying streak continued in the Liebherr Cup quarterfinals, when he defeated Anton Källberg to lead off Bad Homburg’s stunning victory over Düsseldorf.
Ban has been the underdog in many of his matches this season, especially throughout the Liebherr Cup. His response to that pressure? A 3-1 win against Dennis Klein in the Round of 16, followed by a 3-2 upset over Dang Qiu. In just one tournament, the 22-year-old went from a player that few thought could take a team to the Liebherr Cup Final Four to the player fans voted as the league’s Player of the Month for November.
Bad Homburg will continue its remarkable run on Sunday, which could potentially end with the Liebherr Cup trophy in its players' hands. Such an outcome would only require an upset over TTC RhönSprudel Fulda-Maberzell in the semifinals, followed by a shocking victory over either 1. FC Saarbrücken - TT or TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen in the finale. That’s quite a tall task, especially given that Bad Homburg is the odd team out from a record and talent standpoint. But Bad Homburg has stood tall in the face of adversity throughout the Liebherr Cup. All it needs is two more matches before it can stand alone as this year’s champions.
Which of these four teams will take home the Liebherr Cup? With a subscription to Table Tennis TV, you can find out LIVE. Both semifinal matches will air at 5 a.m. EST on Sunday, and the finale will begin 45 minutes after the second match ends.
