The 2021/22 Bundesliga season is over in Germany. While the champions made no surprise, the German league still had plenty of interesting action this season.
Borussia Düsseldorf did it again in a dramatic fashion! Once again, they were challenged by the 1. FC Saarbrücken. The final was indeed an exciting spectacle for the fans. The Swedish international Anton Källberg was the hero of the Bundesliga final, winning both of his singles games. Of course, you also have to give credit to Kristian Karlsson, and Dang Qiu, who won the decisive doubles match 3-0. Throughout the season, the addition of Qiu proved to be really valuable. The newcomer of Borussia won 14 out of 16 games.
2021/22 season turned out to be a history for the Post SV Mühlhausen team – they won their first Bundesliga medals. The team from Mühlhausen advanced to the Bundesliga in 2013, but they never managed to make it to the Final Four, finishing 5th in the 2019/20 season, and it was the best achievement of the club up until this season. One of the key players, who helped Mühlhausen finally win the medals was the 22-year-old Frenchman Irvin Bertrand. He replaced the more experienced Lubomir Jančarik and managed to win 8 games this season (Jančarik won just three in the previous one). The pillars of the Mühlhausen team – Daniel Habesohn and Ovidiu Ionescu also displayed stellar table tennis. While the start of the season was slow, towards the mid-season, Mühlhausen found itself in the Top 4 position and earned a ticket to the playoffs. They eventually lacked the quality to show any resistance to Saarbrücken, but the 2021/22 season will remain one to remember.
Another team that enjoyed great progress this season was TTC Fulda-Maberzell. Last season, they finished 10th, but this season they managed to climb up into Final Four and won the bronze medals eventually. The key man in this success was the 23-year-old Frenchman Alexandre Cassin. He became a true leader of the Fulda team, winning 20 out of 25 games. The experienced Nigerian Quadri Aruna also provided 18 wins in 28 games, and this duo proved to be one to be aware of in the 2022/23 season. It is also clear that other teams will keep Cassin under their radar as well. Who knows, maybe he might join some other Bundesliga top side in the near future.
If we look at the performance of other teams, it’s worth mentioning that TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen could not really cope with the departure of Hugo Calderano. The addition of Can Akkuzu was not that bad (9 Wins and 2 Losses), but Simon Gauzy and Kanak Jha were short in their abilities to get enough wins to make it to the playoffs. Maybe this summer will lead to some changes in their roster.
The same can be said about Werder Bremen. Mattias Falck and Kirill Gerassimenko brought plenty of wins, but their teammates could not step up when Bremen needed it the most. In particular, the Romanian international Hunor Szőcs, who lost all his 13 games this season. In the past two seasons, he has not won a single match for the Werder team. The team’s management definitely should consider some changes if they want to be a playoff contender in the upcoming season. Falck and Gerassimenko need help.
Overall, this Bundesliga season was more of an ordinary one in terms of intrigue. We did not see any surprises in the final. It was relatively easy to predict that Borussia and Saarbrücken might once again decide the champion. Unless we see some big transfers this summer from other teams, the 2022/23 season might present a similar scenario.
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