First Sparta doubles championship
On 27 December 2025, Sparta TTC held its first ever doubles tournament. It proved
very popular as twenty participants turned up just after Boxing Day to fill the hall.
Tea, coffee and home made cake helped sustain the good mood throughout the 2.5
hours of play.
Players were first randomly allocated to partners before split into two groups of five
pairs each. Each group played round robin with best of three games. The top two
pairs of each group progressed into the knock-out stage playing best-of-five semi-
finals and the final.
Congratulations to winners Aarav and Simon N who put their names on the newly
established Board of Honour. In the final, they took revenge with a 3:1 win over Abhi
and Peter F who previously beat them during the group matches.
Despite its timing during the holiday period – or maybe because of it – the
tournament turned out to be a great success. The relaxed and joyful mood and the
need for some exercise after the festive period made people looking forward to some
unusual challenge for the day. For many it was the first time they played doubles on
a competitive stage. And everyone agreed they’d like to see such a tournament
repeated next year.
Doubles Fun Fact #1: The most successful men‘s doubles player of all time is not Ma
Long or Zhang Jike but left-handed penholder player Xu Xin.
https://youtube.com/shorts/XmRX5BoFN6k?si=aq639C2GaygE_SVr
Doubles Fun Fact #2: In 1989, two German youngsters, Jörg Roßkopf and Steffen
Fetzner, won the men’s doubles World Championship on home soil, sparking a
decade-long table tennis euphoria in the country.
https://youtu.be/6gx5oXXBvJ8?feature=shared
Doubles Fun Fact #3: Arguably the most exciting doubles match at a grand
tournament ever was the women’s doubles semi-final Kim Kyung Ah and Park Mi
Young vs Ding Ning and Guo Yan at the 2009 WTTC in Yokohama.
https://youtu.be/NzYtFLpJrQU?si=T-L3n4i97hgsyjVb
Doubles Fun Fact #4: On a personal note, the highest-ranked player I ever had the
honour of practicing with was Wilfried Lieck, 5 times German champion, though his
highest title was European Champion in mixed doubles (1978). Lieck later became a
gerontological phenomenon, becoming world champion in singles (over 60s) and
doubles (over 65s). He played at professional level until age 77. Today, at 80, he is
still going strong at regional level.
https://youtu.be/LIKzzFQtNqM?si=CJ1Qbxpu25II7haV
Doubles Fun Fact #5: The first WTTC in 1926 was dominated by Hungarians. The
mens’ doubles went to Roland Jacobi and Dani Pesci, while the mixed doubles title
(yes, they had mixed doubles already back then!) went to Zoltan Mechlovits and
Maria von Mednyanszky. Read this wonderful article on the TTE website.
https://www.tabletennisengland.co.uk/news/2025/london-1926-how-the-world-championships-was-born/
Doubles Fun Fact #6: The most dominant doubles pair ever are considered to be two
women: legendary pimples-playing Deng Yaping and Qiao Hong. They won back-to-
back Olympic titles in 1992 and 1996. (Afraid, I could not find footage of the doubles,
so here are Deng‘s singles victories.)
https://youtu.be/4rA2_5FD2j4?si=LEJTEiB3QnmTfH0Z
