The fascination of table tennis: your world is a table

Fast, intense, a constant back and forth: Anyone who has ever watched a table tennis game knows how captivating a match on the small table can be. The fascination for indoor sports – which came into the public eye in Austria mainly thanks to Werner Schlager’s world championship title in 2003 – is also widespread in the Innviertel. 17 clubs from the region are now officially registered with the Upper Austrian Table Tennis Association (ÖTTV). They all start the second half of the current championship this week.

One of the youngest Innviertel clubs comes from Sauwald. In the spring of 2022, a few self-proclaimed “garage and basement players” got together in Esternberg and launched the UTTC Esternberg. “We founders of the club have been playing table tennis together for a long time and have also taken part in hobby tournaments,” says UTTC board member and founding member David Fuchs. “At some point we reached the point where we said: Now let’s found a club!”

Successful start

Said and done. The influx was enormous after the company was founded and the first training sessions, says Fuchs. Almost 30 active people, ten of whom are young people, are currently playing table tennis in Esternberg.

And success also came relatively quickly in the Sauwald community. In the first championship season, the first team was promoted to the district class. The Esternbergers are currently in the bottom third of the table. “The new class is still giving us a bit of trouble,” says Fuchs. But they want to establish themselves in the new league so that they can attack again next season.

“One time chance”

While the club’s history in Esternberg is only in its infancy, TSV Utzenaich can already look back on a long and successful time in table tennis. In the Rieder community, club play has been taking place since the 1950s – with a short interruption.

However, the greatest success so far only came recently: the Utzenaichers were promoted three times in a row and finally ended up in the Tibhar League, the highest Austrian amateur league, in the summer of 2023. At the halfway point of the championship, the Utzenaichers are currently level on points with the penultimate team at the bottom of the table. But there’s no reason for the currently most successful Innviertel table tennis team to hang their heads, as board member Heinz Webinger explains: “As the only true amateur club in this league without paid players, we were aware of the situation from the start. But we definitely wanted to take advantage of this unique opportunity and also give the players who have been playing together in an unchanged line-up for five seasons the opportunity to compete with the best. If we were to be relegated to the regional league again, it wouldn’t be a big deal.” ASKÖ TTC Friedburg is currently in eighth place in the table. The Friedburg team has a total of 44 players in five teams. “We’ve had worse times before,” says chairman Markus Altenberger with a smile.

Body and mind challenged

Despite the fact that table tennis tends to be marginalized in the (Austrian) sports world, the popularity and enthusiasm is relatively high. “Table tennis is a fast, exciting sport. And it’s a lot of mental work, after all it’s usually one-on-one,” says Altenberger. David Fuchs also confirms that standing opposite one another and competing against one another is very attractive.

“The body and mind are challenged,” says Herbert Webinger. “If you want to practice this sport, you should above all have fun and enjoy it.” This probably applies to all Innviertel table tennis teams in the upcoming second half of the season.

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