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TTBL Player of the Month for September: Shunsuke Togami (TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen)
In a social media poll, fans of the Table Tennis Bundesliga were able to vote for their “TTBL Player of the Month for September” after match days two to four of the new season. A total of five candidates were up for election (in alphabetical order), partly due to their strong performances on the international stage: Mattias Falck (Werder Bremen), Patrick Franziska, Darko Jorgic (both 1. FC Saarbrücken-TT), Shunsuke Togami (TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen), and Jo Yokotani (TTC OE Clarity Telefonie-Systeme Bad Homburg). Togami received the most votes.
He came, he saw, he conquered: in keeping with Julius Caesar's famous quote, Shunsuke Togami made his mark on the German Table Tennis League (TTBL) in September. Although his team, TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen, had fallen to the bottom of the table due to his unexpected absence at the start of the season, the double world champion lifted the defending champions back into contention with flawless performances against TTC Zugbrücke Grenzau and Werder Bremen. In the cup, the 24-year-old again contributed significantly to Ochsenhausen's entry into the quarterfinals with two points against Bremen.
The TTBL community honored Togami's impressive performances by voting him “Player of the Month.” Repeating his success in the vote last December, the Japanese player narrowly beat German crowd favorite Patrick Franziska.
The vote by TTBL fans was probably also influenced by events on the international stage. At the beginning of September, Togami celebrated his first title win on the WTT Tour at the Contender tournament in Almaty, Kazakhstan, after the right-hander had previously lost twice in the final of a WTT tournament. As a reward, the Asian player climbed back into the top 20 in the world rankings.
With the momentum from Almaty, Togami made a big impact in the TTBL after returning to Ochsenhausen. In TTF's first win of the season against Grenzau, the successor to World Cup winner and World Championship runner-up Hugo Calderano became the number one player with victories over Samuel Walker and Feng Yi-Hsin, and also shone against Bremen with a double win over Irvin Bertrand and Kirill Gerassimenko.
Togami's start to the season with the double winners, including his two points in the cup round of 16 against Werder, fully met TTF President Kristijan Pejinovic's hopes for the development of the new leader. “The basic idea,” said the club boss in an interview with TTBL before Togami's first games, "is that Shunsuke should learn to deal with this responsibility. He can and should grow into this role. I definitely believe he can do it." Against this backdrop, Pejinovic recalled that Togami had already contributed important points to both title wins in the cup final and the TTBL final this year.
Togami himself has kept the secret of his rapid development and ongoing winning streak to himself so far, but after his victories against Grenzau, he revealed at least one aspect: “I eat a lot of German schnitzel.”
Florian Manzke
