A thrilling match. An unexpected victory. Welcome to the quarterfinals of the 2025-26 German Table Tennis Cup.
TTC OE Clarity Telefonie-Systeme Bad Homburg (3-5, 6:10) shocked current No. 1 seed and reigning record champions Borussia Düsseldorf (6-2, 12:4) in five sets on Tuesday. Bad Homburg, Table Tennis Bundesliga’s current 10th seed, will return to the Final Four for their second consecutive season.
Bad Homburg got on the board early after Jo Yokotani (1) took down Düsseldorf’s Anton Källberg (2) in four games. Yokotani won the first two games 11-8 and 11-6 before Källberg took an 11-6 victory in the third game. Källberg's comeback bid fell short after the fourth game, which Yokotani won 11-9.
Ivor Ban (2) then took the table against Düsseldorf superstar Dang Qiu (1), but he lost the first game 6-11. He tied the set with an 11-7 win in the second game before collapsing in the third with a 5-11 defeat. Qiu needed just one more win to put Düsseldorf on the board, but Ban wasn’t going to let that happen. The two players battled for the remainder of their set until Ban won the fourth game 12-10, and the fifth game 13-11.
A shutout for Bad Homburg was not meant to be, though. Csaba Andras (3) fought hard against Düsseldorf star Kanak Jha in the first game, and he came out of it with a 12-10 victory. But after Andras suffered an 8-11 loss in the second game, Jha pummeled him twice to win 11-2 in the third game and 11-4 in the fourth game.
Things wouldn’t get better for Bad Homburg when the No. 1s faced each other. Yokotani's outstanding first set would not translate to his set against Qiu. He certainly put in a valiant effort, losing the first game 9-11 and taking the second 12-10. But Qiu took the third game 11-6 and the fourth game 14-12, forcing a winner-take-all fifth set.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for Bad Homburg, who went from a potential sweep to a potential elimination in just two sets. But they weren’t out of it just yet. If Ban and Andras could win their doubles set against Källberg and Borgar Haug (4), Bad Homburg would return to the semifinals for a one-in-four chance at this year’s German Table Tennis Cup trophy.
The two tandems traded points throughout the first game, neither team refusing to stay far behind at any point. Bad Homburg won that game 13-11 and annihilated Düsseldorf in the second game, 11-4.
Källberg and Haug weren’t ready to give in. They responded to Ban and Andras with an 11-8 win in the third game, positioning themselves for a potential two-game takeover to win the match. But Bad Homburg wasn’t going to let that happen. Ban and Andras clobbered Källberg and Haug to send their club to another Final Four.
After winning the German Table Tennis Cup in 2023-24, Düsseldorf failed to make the Final Four for their second straight season. In 2024-25, Düsseldorf bowed out during the Round of 16, following their 3-1 loss to TTC RhönSprudel Fulda-Maberzell.
The quarterfinals for the German Table Tennis Cup will continue on Wednesday at 1 p.m. EST, when reigning champions TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen take on Post SV Muhlhausen.
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