Maintaining the lead in the table with three points

The ladies of TTC 46 Weinheim with a draw and a win from southern Germany

The top teams in the first women’s Bundesliga all played to a draw on Saturday and thus remain in the same order in the table. Berlin and Langstadt drew, and there was ultimately no winner between TSV Dachau and TTC 46 Weinheim.
In this highly dramatic match with surprising results, the luck changed so often that the points were shared fairly.
In the doubles, the score was 1:1. Dachau’s top players Sabine Winter and Yangzi Liu did not allow Bruna Takahashi and Mateja Jeger, who was ready to play again after her knee injury, to develop and won 3:0. Next door, Yuan Wan and Sophia Klee secured the first two rounds against Alina Nikitchanka/Tin-Tin Ho, but then had to concede the equalizer before winning the deciding set 11:5.
In the duel between Yuan Wan and Sabine Winter, the two national team colleagues for the World Championships in Korea, the player from Dachau had a match point after 0:1 and 2:1 in the fourth set, but Yuan still managed to win the set. Things initially looked bleak for her in the deciding set when Winter pulled away to 7:3. But Yuan came back from 6:8 to 9:8 to win 11:9 and level the match at 2:2.

Things went very quickly in the back four. Sophia Klee against Tin-Tin Ho and Daria Trigolos against Alina Nikitchanka left no stone unturned and each won 3:0. And when Bruna Takahashi then won the top match against Sabine Winter after three rounds, one point was already secured at 5:2.
Yuan Wan then had the second to make it 6:2 against Yangzi Liu. After 2:2 sets, she started like a fire engine in the final set and led 8:1 and 9:3, but then Liu won eight points and finally 10:12.
There was still hope of an overall win, as the two players in the back four had won their first games in outstanding fashion. However, Daria Trigolos lost 1:3 against Tin-Tin Ho. Sophia Klee was also unable to turn her 2:0 lead against Nikitchanka into a win.
Sunday brought the hoped-for double points win at SV Böblingen, who are in 7th place and still have to fight for a place in the play-offs.

Once again, the two doubles wins at the start opened the door.
Bruna and Daria gave Gotsch/Quarg no chance at all in their three-set victory, and Yuan and Sophia also looked like a walk in the park against Annett Kaufmann/Airi Avameri. After clearly winning the sets, they equalized again, but ultimately had their noses in front.
The first singles went to the hosts. Both Qianhong Gotsch against Yuan Wan and Annett Kaufmann against Bruna Takahashi were both successful with 3:1 to bring the score to 2:2.
But the back four can be relied on and showed that they can make the difference.
Mateja Jeger, this time playing in the singles, clearly dominated Katrin Quarg, and Daria Trigolos also won 3:1 against Airi Avameri.
Bruna proved that she can cope well with the defensive artist Quianhong Gotsch, winning 3:0, as she had done in their previous meetings, to make it 5:2.
The duel with Yuan Wan, who will represent Germany together in Korea, went clearly in favor of Annett Kaufmann at 3:0.
Mateja Jeger’s 3:1 win against Avameri decided the Weinheim victory.
These three points allow the TTC 46 to retain the lead, which must then be defended on March 3 in Kolbermoor. Their 6:0 win against Langstadt should already be a warning.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)