Press announcement:
DHM final of the badminton team competition on Sunday in Essen - For the third time in a row, the UDE team wants to bring the DHM title to the Ruhr area

This Sunday, June 12th, 2016, from 10 a.m., the University Sports of the University of Duisburg-Essen will host the final of the German University Championships in the badminton team competition. In addition to the host's team, the university teams from Hamburg and Cologne are part of the field of participants in order to play the best university team in Germany on this day. The fourth qualified team from Regensburg unfortunately had to cancel their participation in advance and the successors from Karlsruhe also had no opportunity to take over the final starting place at short notice.

The University Sports team at the University of Duisburg-Essen has been the most successful badminton team at German universities in recent years. You won the German University Championship in 2014 and 2015 and are hungry to prove for the third time in a row that you are still the best university badminton team in Germany.

Due to its success in Germany, the UDE team has already played several times internationally at the European University Championships and will again this year compete at the European University Games, EUG for short, in mid-July with a top-class team in Zagreb for international comparison.

The DHM final on Sunday again offers badminton at the highest level and the field consists mainly of players from the regional badminton league and the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga.

In the Essen squad, for example, Isabel Herttrich (1st BC Bischmisheim-Saarbrücken), Eva Janssens (1st BC Bonn-Beutel) and Alexander Roovers (1st BV Mülheim) currently play in their clubs in the highest German badminton class. The team is complemented by Barbara Bellenberg, Lea-Lyn Stremlau, Laura Wich, Tim Ufermann, Jonathan Rathke, Simon Reinhardt and the dual player and team manager Julian Lohau. The latter play, with two exceptions, in club competition in the 2nd Bundesliga and regional league.

Even if the UDE team enters the final tournament on Sunday as the favorite, it will be anything but a sure-fire success, as the universities from Hamburg and Cologne will travel to the Ruhr area with a similarly strong squad and, in the end, the form of the players on the day will decide the outcome in the end.

The final will be held in the form of a tournament in “everyone against everyone” mode. In the three upcoming team games, the winner will be played in five games (women: singles & doubles, men: singles & doubles, mixed: doubles). Thanks to the great support of the sports institute of the University of Duisburg-Essen and the technically responsible staff on site, the new dual sports hall on the sports campus in Essen (Gladbecker Str. 210, 45141 Essen) could be won as the venue. The individual games will mostly take place in parallel on two badminton fields.

The team and those responsible for university sports at the UDE are looking forward to an exciting and top-class badminton final and hope that numerous badminton and general sports enthusiasts will find their way into the hall to meet the UDE team live on site for the third German university championship in a row to help!

There will be enough seats to watch the duels up close.

Since the spectator seats are located directly on the field and the hall should keep its new shine for a long time, the organizers ask for your understanding that no street shoes and / or shoes with dark, staining soles are allowed indoors and point out that either suitable Indoor shoes would have to be brought along or the spectator area is otherwise only allowed in socks.

Parking spaces:
There are enough parking spaces in the large parking lot in front of the hall.

Public Transport:
Bus stop: Stadtwiese (bus route 196)
Underground station: Bäuminghausstraße (underground lines U11 & U17)
Both stops are within walking distance.

Press announcement:
The UDE is German University Champion in Badminton competition - for the third time in a row the UDE team has won the DHM title in the Ruhr area

Late on Sunday afternoon, the University Sports badminton team at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) won the third German University Championship title in a row this year after 2014 and 2015. The university teams from Hamburg and Cologne tried everything to let the UDE team break the championship party in the evening, but at no time during the final could they really endanger the Duisburg-Essen team's title win.

Thanks to the great support of the sports institute of the University of Duisburg-Essen, the court and hall warden Mr. Zimmermann and the commitment of the entire UDE badminton squad, the organization of the final was able to take place at short notice on the part of the University Sports of the UDE in the new dual sports hall at the Essen location the grounds of the Essen sports campus on Gladbecker Straße. Otherwise the hosting of the Badminton Team DHM final in the summer semester 2016 would have been questionable due to the lack of a venue.

Before the start of the final there was bad news for the team of University Sports at the University of Duisburg-Essen, as Timon Ufermann had to cancel his participation due to illness and it was already clear in advance that the Bundesliga player and individual specialist Alexander Roovers would only be for the last game of the UDE will be available that day. Due to the proximity to the women's base in Mülheim a. d. In general, it would have been easier to compensate for a loss among the women of the team, as other players from the UDE squad could not even be included in the squad and Laura Wich even waived her final appearance in favor of a smaller rotation.

The final squad of the UDE was composed as follows:

Women: Katharina Altenbeck (1st BV Mülheim, Regionalliga), Barbara Bellenberg (TV Emsdetten, 2nd Bundesliga), Isabel Herttrich (1st BC Bischmisheim-Saarbrücken, 1st Bundesliga), Eva Janssens (1st BC Bonn-Beutel, 1 .Bundesliga), Lea-Lyn Stremlau (STC BW Solingen, Oberliga)

Men: Alexander Roovers (1st BV Mülheim, 1st Bundesliga), Julian Lohau (1st BV Mülheim, Regional League), Jonathan Rathke (1st BV Mülheim, Regional League), Simon Reinhardt (Sterkrade-Nord, Oberliga)

Overall, the UDE team still had an advantage at the finals not only because of their individual strengths, but also because of the high density of badminton talents at the UDE, since the Cologne team only had two women and three men and the Hanseatic team just once a minimum of two women and two men were available.

Therefore, the host remained consistently self-confident and showed with a 5: 0 in games, without a single set loss, against the Hamburgers who is master of the house.

In the second final team game of the day, the competition community of the Cologne universities imitated the UDE team and, in addition to a flawless game without defeat or loss of a set, was able to defeat the Hanseatic city in the individual sets with an even greater point gap than the hosts before.

The question was whether the higher victories were due to the great exertion of the small Hamburg squad in the game against the UDE or whether the Cologne team had just had a perfect day.

Before the start of the finals, the Cologne team was already considered to be the reigning champion's greatest competitor, which is why the spectators, as well as discipline chief Kim Carmen Buss, were eagerly awaiting the clash of the currently best German badminton university teams.

In the first two double games of the game there was one on one the same clear result: 21:11 in the first set and 21:13 in the second set. Only on the women's doubles field was Isabell Herttrich and Barbara Bellenberg of the UDE able to beat Vernea Venhaus and Theresa Ebertz from Cologne without any problems and on the other field the Domstadt players David Kramer and Niklas Niemcyk against the UDE players Julian Lohau and Jonathan Rathke.

In time before the start of the individual games, Alexander Roovers also joined the UDE team and played his individual game against Christopher Skrzeba and Katharina Altenbeck had Verena Venhaus as an opponent on the other side of the network. Even if Katharina Altenbeck had to fight for every point after a sovereign 21: 9 in the first set and was only able to win just 21:19 in the end, the simultaneous two-set win by Alexander Roovers made the dream of winning the third title come true early and that The whole team, including all the inactive players from the UDE on that day, cheered together with the spectators and were happy about the German university championship title 2016!

Despite the preliminary decision, the UDE team showed how much they love the badminton competition, which was demonstrated by the top line-up of Alexander Roovers and Isabell Herttrich in the subsequent mixed doubles, which, after another top performance, also played the last game of the day the UDE could win.

Regardless of the advantage of the large squad of the university sports team of the University of Duisburg-Essen, the high quality of their players made the difference in the end and the championship title remained well-deserved in the Ruhr area.

That all actively involved showed badminton at the top level on that day should be mentioned afterwards, as well as the fact that the players not only practice the badminton sport professionally, but that they live and love it consistently! The Cologne and Duisburg-Essen team provided proof of this right after the award ceremony, when, after all the efforts on the final day, they didn't even think about leaving the hall for a moment, but mingled and played a few more games To play badminton before they finally got ready to enjoy the second biggest sporting event of the day after the badminton DHM final, the European Championship game Germany against Ukraine, but this time as a spectator and without a racket.

Even after winning the DHM title, the next badminton highlight of the UDE is not long in coming. One week after the European Football Championship final, the badminton racket will once again be a symbol of university sport at the UDE when the badminton team will fight for the European university title in Zagreb at the European University Games from mid-July.