TT-Bayern Cup - TSV Mindelheim

Special report on the 2024/2025 cup competition ...

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The First Team Wins the District Cup

In the preliminary round, round of 16 and quarter-finals, the 4 participants in the final round were determined in a knockout system from October 2024. Until the “Final Four”, our team plowed through the cup competition. With three 4:0 victories and only 6 lost sets, they left no doubt about their status as favorites. The final round then took place on February 1st in Mindelheim with the qualified teams from Großaitingen, Untermeitingen, Lagerlechfeld and Mindelheim.

After the semi-final draw, Großaitingen was the first opponent for the hosts in the final round, but they were defeated 4-0 without a chance. In the second semi-final, things were much tighter. After close games, the Untermeitingen team prevailed against Lagerlechfeld. This meant that the final was TSV Mindelheim against SV Untermeitingen. Here, too, the class of our team was evident from the start. First, Thomas Handloser, Chousein Amet and Christian Peter ensured clear conditions in the singles with clear victories. The final point to 4:0 was left to the Handloser/Amet doubles to end the one-sided final. This final victory also means the invitation to the final games at district level on February 23rd in Biessenhofen. The tournament continues via association and state level to federal level. Who knows, maybe we’ll soon have a German champion in our own ranks.

From left to right, the regular players Thomas Handloser, Chousein Amet, Marc Justra, Christian Peter and the substitute players Wolf-Dieter Pechhold and Simon Hacker, who successfully helped out.

The First Team Wins the Regional Cup

After the first team of the Mindelheim table tennis department had already won the district cup at district level almost 4 weeks ago – by the way, with five 4:0 victories up to the final – they were now challenged at district level in Biessenhofen.

In a 4-team final round, they started against TSV Pfronten II with a 4:0 and only one set loss. The second game against TV Boos VI also ended with the same result. After the last opponent TV Kempten II surprisingly lost against TSV Pfronten II, they could even afford a narrow defeat against Kempten. Nevertheless, the team around captain Christian Peter approached the last game with the usual concentration. After Thomas Handloser’s safe 3:0, Marc Justra was already leading 2:0 against youth player Nico Engelhardt, when the Bavarian U15 talent suddenly turned up again and inflicted the Mindelheim cup team’s only defeat.

After winning the doubles, Mindelheim’s top player Thomas Handloser also had to compete against the youth talent. After two safe 11:4 sets, everything seemed to be clear, but time and again Nico Engelhardt ended the top spin rallies in sets 3 and 4 with his strong backhand and equalized to 2:2. The 5th set was also balanced until 6:6, until Thomas Handloser ended the set with 11:6 with two direct serve points and all his routine. Still undefeated, the South Bavarian Cup final round will now follow at the end of March.

The First Team Wins the Association Cup

On the way to the German Championship – The first TT team from Mindelheim takes the next hurdle

After the victory at district and regional level, the final round of the South Bavarian Championships in Erolzheim was now on the agenda. The opponents of the “Final Four” were the teams of TSV Dachau, TSV Hohenpeissenberg and TTC Friedberg. The draw resulted in the team from Friedberg as the first opponent, who was confidently defeated 4:1, while in the parallel game Hohenpeissenberg prevailed 4:3 against Dachau.

In the second round of the game it became even more exciting. After a 2:1 deficit, the Handloser/Justra doubles and Thomas Handloser in his second singles managed to turn the game around again to take a 3:2 lead. After the following singles it was 3:3 and the last singles from Choussein Amet had to bring the decision. Despite a 2:0 set lead, he did not manage to win the game. Thus, the Mindelheim team had to accept their first defeat in the entire cup competition with a 4:3 against Dachau. At the same time, Hohenpeissenberg won against Friedberg with 4:2, which meant that the last encounters, Dachau-Friedberg and Mindelheim-Hohenpeissenberg, were real finals.

Apart from Friedberg, the other three teams still had it in their own hands to win the South Bavarian Cup. However, after Dachau surprisingly fell behind against Friedberg with 1:3, it was clear that the winner of the match Mindelheim against Hohenpeissenberg would win the cup. After another confident performance by Thomas Handloser (3:0 against Bertl), Marc Justra had some bad luck against Dunajski and lost 1:3. What followed was not for the faint of heart. Chousein Amet was once again already leading 2:0 in sets, but had to allow the top player Daniel Vögl of Hohenpeissenberg to make it 2:2. The fifth set had to decide and finally it was at the score of 9:9 when a dubious “stop ball” prevented Amet from taking a 10:9 lead. But he did not let this distract him, showed strong nerves and won 11:9. This meant the intermediate 2:1 lead and the doubles followed. And the thriller continued … again after a 2:0 set lead, Hohenpeissenberg was able to equalize to 2:2 in this match as well and the fifth set had to decide here as well. And here, too, it went in lockstep until 9:9 before the Mindelheim team won the game 11:9 and extended their lead to 3:1. It was then Thomas Handloser who scored the decisive fourth point in the singles and secured the tournament victory. At the same time, Chousein Amet was also able to win his second singles confidently with 3:0, but that was no longer included in the standings.

Click here for the results and the table …

The award ceremony and impressions of the final round …

Note: You can watch the films on your PC/Mac in the best quality. Click on the YouTube logo at the bottom right, then the film will open in a new window on YouTube in high resolution.

Unfortunately, sometimes the decisive balls and most exciting moments are missing in the film. According to “Murphy’s Law“, sometimes the battery was simply empty at the crucial moment, the memory card was full at the end or, as in the last game against Vohburg, two games took place at the same time … or the cameraman simply forgot to start again after the time-out due to all the excitement

The "Bayern Cup" Adventure

After victories at district, regional and association level, our 1st team now went to the final round at state level in Wunsiedel in Upper Franconia, not far from the Czech border. The tournament for the Bavaria Cup was hosted by SV Holenbrunn.

Opponents were the best qualified teams from Bavaria from SV Geroldshausen, SV Hahnbach II, as well as the third team of TV 1911 Vohburg. The tournament was also the qualification for participation in the German Championships in May and in addition to the winner, the second could also hope to participate in the “German”. Played again in a group of four in the mode “Everyone against everyone” to the fourth point (Best of seven). A small group of fans was part of the game, who loudly supported the team. As a substitute for the unfortunately ill regular player Christian Peter, Simon Hacker had traveled along.

The Road to Wunsiedel/Holenbrunn … A short trailer of how our team got to the Bavaria Cup.

Our successful cup team was of course supported at the Bavaria Cup in Wunsiedel by tactical foxes, psychologists, time-out specialists, other supervisors and fans …

And then it started with the opening match: SV Geroldshausen – TSV Mindelheim

These games are only available in summarized excerpts … All videos are on YouTube, start/click on the videos and then on the YouTube logo at the bottom of the bar.

The first opponent was SV Geroldshausen, which was considered to be the weakest opponent. But the match started in the worst possible way, as Chousein Amet could not break through his opponent’s cut defense time and again in the first singles. After a thrilling 5-set match, he was defeated and the Mindelheim team were initially 1-0 behind. With a safe victory by Thomas Handloser and a hard-fought 3:1 by Marc Justra against “Oldie” Krämer, they still went into the doubles with a lead.

After spectacular rallies up to the 2:2 set equalization, the fifth set had to decide and there Handloser/Amet kept the upper hand with 11:9 in the end, Mindelheim led with 3:1. In the last singles, Thomas Handloser then showed his whole class against the defensive strategist of Geroldshausen, turned a 1:2 into a 3:2 and thus made the 4:1 final score perfect.

Here are a few excerpts from the respective matches …

Heorhii Korniienko – Chousein Amet

Igor Prakht – Thomas Handloser

Norbert Krämer – Marc Justra

Korniienko/Prakht – Handloser/Amet

Heorhii Korniienko – Thomas Handloser

A successful start that gives courage for the next match against the big favorite from SV Hahnbach II …

Game 2: TSV Mindelheim – SV Hahnbach II

Now followed the strongest opponent and clear favorite with the “2nd team” from Hahnbach, who had placed a Hungarian top player in position 1 with a “trick” in their ranking list. According to TTR points (point system for classifying the strength of the game), this had about the average score of a good Oberliga player, which is 5 classes above the Bezirksklasse, which was actually played. Needless to say, he didn’t play a single game in the Bezirksklasse A for his team in the season.

Unimpressed by these strengths, the Mindelheim team went into the match with concentration and took the lead with a confident 3:0 by Thomas Handloser. As already suspected, the top player of the guests equalized to 1:1. Chousein Amet then showed a hard-fought match, but also lost in three close sets. The following doubles then developed into a spectacle. After a 1:0 and again 2:1 lead for Mindelheim, it still went into the decisive 5th set. After a dramatic course of the game and outstanding rallies, the victory went to Mindelheim with 12:10 and the score was 2:2.

Now it came to the top duel of the best players of both teams. Despite a concentrated performance, Thomas Handloser could not withstand the powerful attacking game of the Hungarian top player Dohnal, whereby after 3 consecutive “potatoes” (edge balls and net rollers) in the 2nd set, the luck of the game was not on our side on this day. Now Mindelheim was 2:3 behind and Chousein Amet was next to equalize again. But he too should not have the famous luck of the game on his side on this day. After 3 missed set balls, he unfortunately lost the first set with 11:13. The next two went clearly with 11:5 and 11:4 then to him, which meant the 2:1 set lead. In retrospect, the three unconverted set balls are all the more annoying, because after losing the 4th set, it went into the deciding set and the often conjured up lack of luck turned into bad luck when his opponent had an edge ball to 10:8 and finally won the set and the game, which meant 2:4 in the overall standings.

Thomas Handloser – Wolfgang Höfer

Simon Hacker – Gabor Andras Dohnal

Chousein Amet – Simon Bauer

Handloser/Amet – Dohnal/Bauer

Thomas Handloser – Gabor Andras Dohnal

Chousein Amet – Wolfgang Höfer

Game 3: TSV Mindelheim – TV 1911 Vohburg III

After Vohburg narrowly prevailed against Geroldshausen with 4:3 in the parallel game, Vohburg and Mindelheim met with one win and one loss each, so to speak, contested the final for second place and it should be a thriller in the truest sense of the word.

Marc Justra opened strongly against the opposing number 1, but had to admit defeat after five sets. With clear 3:0 victories, Handloser and Amet, however, ensured the 2:1 lead before the doubles.

After outstanding performances by both doubles, Vohburg’s two-time set lead and subsequent equalization, a 5th set had to decide again. The level of the match was high-class until the end, but unfortunately the bit of luck was again on the side of Vohburg, who narrowly won the 5th set and thus equalized to a 2:2 score.

Meanwhile, all matches of the district leagues and the association leagues of the women and men had already ended and the hall was almost empty. Actually, the tournament should have ended according to plan at 4 p.m., but now it was 6:30 p.m. in the last decisive singles. While Thomas Handloser scored for Mindelheim with another 3:1 victory, Marc Justra lost his singles despite a great fight in the 5th set, it was 3:3.

The last game had to decide, Chousein Amet started brilliantly and quickly led 2:0. But the Vohburg player came back and turned the game in five sets. The decision fell wafer-thin against Mindelheim and to once again use the missing luck of the game, all 4 lost games ended in the 5th set – final score: 3:4, despite more sets and balls won.

With an outstanding team performance over long stretches, Mindelheim narrowly missed the qualification for the German Championship, but the team was able to fully convince in terms of play and fighting spirit – a strong exclamation mark at the Bavarian level.