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In a social media poll, fans of the Table Tennis Bundesliga were able to vote for their TTBL Player of the Month for October after match days five and six of the new season. There were a total of five candidates to choose from (in alphabetical order): Marcelo Aguirre (Werder Bremen), Benedikt Duda (TTC Schwalbe Bergneustadt), Kanak Jha (Borussia Düsseldorf), Anders Lind (Borussia Dortmund), and Dang Qiu (Düsseldorf). Aguirre received the most votes.

He had no chance – and he took it: Marcelo Aguirre of league leaders Werder Bremen fulfilled a dream with his coup against the new TTBL superstar Fan Zhendong (1. FC Saarbrücken-TT) and can now call himself, quite immodestly and without exaggeration, the “Olympic champion slayer.” The Paraguayan's career highlight helped his team to a surprisingly favorable starting position in the final standings (3:2), at least until well into the fall, in what is likely to be the most exciting race for playoff spots in league history.

The TTBL community voted Aguirre “Player of the Month” for his impressive feat. With 53 percent of the votes, the 32-year-old clearly beat London Star Contender winner Dang Qiu (20 percent) and top 10 star Benedikt Duda (18 percent), who had won bronze together at the European Team Championships in Zadar.

Aguirre's sensational victory against Fan is truly worthy of the award. After all, the left-hander, ranked 173rd in the world due to his reduced participation in WTT tournaments, could not necessarily be considered a “natural” contender for victory against the two-time world champion, or even a candidate for a match against the icon: In Bremen's victories in the first three games of the season, Werder's new signing Irvin Bertrand had been thoroughly convincing, while Aguirre, who had won only once in his nine matches last season, had been forced to watch from the sidelines.

The South American owed his appearance against Saarbrücken not only to the tactical skills of Bremen's “fox coach” Cristian Tamas, but also to his hard work. “Marcelo earned this chance through good work and good training,” said the coach after the game, explaining his surprising move against the supposed superior team in the league: “Marcelo had nothing to lose against Fan and impressively confirmed our trust in him.”

Aguirre must have experienced his duel with the long-standing world number one like a table tennis fairy tale. The 32-year-old first “stole” the first set 12-10 after defending a set point and did not let himself be discouraged by the Chinese player's subsequent set win. On the contrary: with enormous perseverance, Aguirre continued to harass his increasingly helpless rather than overpowering opponent in the next two sets, winning 11-6, 11-6.

“I am happy and proud to have beaten one of the best players of all time. I will never forget this victory,” said Aguirre, placing his coup at the top of his personal scale of values. His recipe for success? “Against such a strong opponent, you just have to give it your all and risk everything.”

The victory of the once youngest Olympic participant (2008 in Beijing) was a rare occurrence: in his nearly 15-year career on the international stage, Fan had only had to congratulate non-Chinese players on their success 21 times before his defeat to Aguirre.

Florian Manzke