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(by Steve Hopkins)
Dang Qiu won his third German National Championship – dominating at the LOTTO Thuringen TT-Finals in Erfurt, Germany. Qiu beat Kay Stumper in the Quarterfinals and Benedikt Duda in the Semifinals. Today, Qiu topped Patrick Franziska 4-1, dropping only the second game. Perhaps the turning point of the match came early as Franziska led for the whole game and was ready to seal the lead up 10-7. Qiu managed to win 3 straight and eventually fought through two ties to win that opening game 13-11. Franziska won the second game, and the third was just as tight – but what could have been 0-2 was 1-1 and that changed the complexion of the whole match.
Dang Qiu was interviewed later and he said he felt a leading factor in his performance was his decision to focus solely on singles. Franziska competed not just in singles, but also in Men’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles. As it turns out, Franziska fell just short three times at this tournament – he finished second with Ricardo Walther in Men’s Doubles (losing to the young pair of Andre Bertelsmeier and Wim Verdonschot), and he finished second in Mixed Doubles with partner Nina Mittelham (losing to Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Sabine Winter). The other events were Women’s Singles, won by Annett Kaufmann, and Women’s Doubles, won by Annett Kaufmann and Shan Xiaona.
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