Nordhorn Brettchen Open 2002 at 25.05.2002

Germany's best hardbat player comes from Dortmund Nordhorn (HH). With veteran Norbert Witte of Borussia Dortmund routine won at the Nordhorn Brettchen Open, the most important hardbat table tennis tournament in Germany. The 63 year old playing with the simple pimpled rubber bat for years and years, had in the final with his 3-1 victory (9:11, 11:4, 11:3, 11:4) little trouble with the 38 year old defender Peter Igel from the Oberliga team of TuS Vahr Bremen and became the successor of the 19 year old last year's winner Kai Lenters who reached only the beaten field this time. Singles runner-up Peter Igel had previously already won the doubles title alongside his teammate Michael Eilers against second division player Nikolai Marek and Jakub Dziechciejewski (VfL Salder/SV Marienwerder) in 3-1 games (4:11, 11:7, 11:8, 11: 3). For the first time after the premiere limited to the local area last year in Nordhorn on Saturday table tennis players from many parts of Germany came together to determine their best in the game with the "Brettchen" called pimpled rubber bats with short pimples outwards and without sponge. These very simple bats, having been the standard in the table tennis world until 50 years ago, cause a very different game than the today's more technically souped rackets with super grippy and turbo-charged surfaces. Most of the 49 starters, many of which are located in the fourth to sixth division, do not use the hardbats in their other table tennis competitions. And so their very skilful handling of these much slower and more or less spinless bats surprised with which they dominated the predominantly older real hardbat players on the rear seats - with the exception of the tournament winner Witte. With Alexander Makovsky (TTC Waldniel) and Dutchman Lars Adema (TTV Victoria Hilversum) the two third-placed showed featured attacking shots, while the 14 year-old cadet Lars Brinkhaus of the organizing SV Eintracht Nordhorn as sixth-placed made clear that even the very young speed glue generation can deal excellently with the very old style rackets. Also the players at the lower positions during the tournament had enough opportunity to get used with the hardbats provided by the organizer if needed. This was also supported by the tournament system as in the applied continued elimination system the tournament did not end for the third and fourth of the preliminary round groups and the loosers of the main round, as all positions including the rearmost were determined exactly. And for the real hardbat beginners so the tournament became really interesting towards the end, when they met with the opponents of equal playing strenght. After the hardbat tournaments in Delmenhorst, Berlin and Niederkassel also Nordhorn Brettchen Open showed what encouragement this version of table tennis is currently experiencing, which has long been established in the USA under the name "Hardbat". So it is not surprising that the SV Eintracht Nordhorn is now already looking for the date of the third implementation in spring 2003.