(by Steve Hopkins)

No Boll, no Ovtcharov, and no Franziska?  Germany announced last Friday that their squad for the World Championships later this month in Chengdu, China will include Dang Qiu, Benedikt Duda, Fanbo Meng, and Ricardo Walther.  The reasons for this roster are a combination of a number of factors including injuries and rest – obviously missing the country’s 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ranked players is not ideal for results or seedings.

That said, Germany has a lot of talented players.  Dang Qiu is No. 9 in the world, Benedikt Duda is No. 36, Ricardo Walther is No. 74, and Fanbo Meng is No. 101.  And with those mentions of the team for the World Championships and those three big names not going, we have left out Ruwen Filus (who won a WTT Contender event this weekend) and Killian Ort (who was one of the points leaders in the German League a year ago), and tough veteran Steffen Mengel, and the young players Kay Stumper and Cedric Meissner.

There is a lot of talent in Germany. It will be interesting to see if this year’s team is an anomaly, or if this is a turning point that will prove to be a changing of the guard where more of the young players come to the forefront – and some of the well-known players that fans have known in recent years begin to step aside.

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