Fan Zhendong enjoys ‘fitting, warm welcome’ in home debut for Borussia Dusseldorf

Borussia Dusseldorf manager Andreas Preuss said Chinese table tennis star Fan Zhendong’s first home match was “only a beginning” and that the German club had to ride the wave and seize the moment to make it sustainable. In his second season in Germany, but the first with new team Dusseldorf, Fan on Saturday secured two points in his team’s 3-1 win over TSV Bad Konigshofen in the Table Tennis Bundesliga. Preuss, who spoke exclusively to the South China Morning Post on Sunday, said it was a “fitting, warm welcome” for China’s Paris Olympics champion. Despite Kanak Jha losing his match against Filip Zeljko, Fan secured two points with a pair of identical 3-1 wins over Andre Bertelsmeier and Zeljko, enough to help the home team claim their second league win in as many matches. “I am thrilled. They were very exciting matches played at a high level,” Preuss said. “It was a fitting, warm welcome for Fan Zhendong, and he thanked everyone in his own way by scoring two points for the team today. “I am extremely pleased; it was a celebration of table tennis.” Fan, 29, helped attract 3,800 spectators at the Mitsubishi Electric Hall for the team’s first home fixture of the season. The club are playing some of their games at the bigger arena in Dusseldorf as their usual home court ARAG Centre Court can host only 1,100 spectators. “There were a lot of learnings for us in the past few months. We kind of knew what was to come, and so we proceeded on many things in parallel,” Preuss said. “We started with merchandising, with social media, we even have a community. “We have more than 40 people working in the club, and we are doing many things every weekend. We had the chance to learn from Saarbrucken [Fan’s previous club] and start on a higher level.” Preuss estimated that around 40 per cent of the spectators at the Mitsubishi Hall were Chinese, including a group of about 100 tourists who arrived from China on the day. The team are starting to negotiate with sponsors, as well as starting a shop in China. Preuss said the team now had around 60 sponsors, up from about 35 at the end of last season. Merchandise including jerseys, scarves and other souvenirs were sold out at the arena after the match. “We now have a mascot, Bo, so there is this lion running around in the arena,” said the 64-year-old Preuss. “We’re developing step by step, we don’t want to do everything from the start. “There will be souvenirs specially designed for the Chinese market, which is different [from what we used to deal with]. This is also a different culture, so we have to adapt.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by D.SPORTS (@dsports.sportstadtduesseldorf) Fan’s new teammate Qiu Dang, who also won a point, heaped praise on the “incredibly fantastic event” and the full-house arena. “Even coming out onto the floor was amazing,” the German international said. “We had to give everything today; even Fan Zhendong dropped two games as well, but I think he played really well after such a long break from competition. “I think there’s no pressure, but it surely felt different being on the same team as Fan. I am thrilled to be playing alongside him; we all feel relieved to have him. We can learn a lot from his game, and hopefully we can win a lot of matches this season.” Borussia Dusseldorf are Germany’s most successful table tennis team, having won the league 34 times, along with 28 German Cup titles and seven European Champions League trophies. The decorated team, however, did not win anything in the 2024-25 season, which was the swansong for the legendary Timo Boll, as well as the season that followed, when former world No 1 Fan swept the league, the cup and Europe in his first overseas season with 1. FC Saarbrucken. Manager Preuss said there was an overwhelming response to Fan joining the club in March, with attention and engagement on the team’s social media increasing to 500 times higher than normal. Sport1, a German television channel, said Fan has gained “at least 100 million loyal fans in Dusseldorf in a very short period of time”, referring to the news that a story about the 29-year-old joining the team was viewed that many times. Fan is expected to be rested in the next match against SV Werder Bremen on Thursday, but will return for the German Cup first-round tie versus Ochsenhausen. Fan is also expected to feature against Bergneustadt – in the fourth league match – at ARAG Centre Court on September 5.

Fan Zhendong enjoys ‘fitting, warm welcome’ in home debut for Borussia Dusseldorf

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}German club says they have to seize the moment and capitalise on Chinese star’s winning ways, pulling power in the Table Tennis Bundesliga

German club says they have to seize the moment and capitalise on Chinese star’s winning ways, pulling power in the Table Tennis Bundesliga