For the third day of fighting in the men’s premier league, the police sports club (PSV) Duisburg received the judokas from JC Holzwickede and JC 66 Bottrop. In the first encounter of the day, Holzwickede had formally secured victory against Bottrop after seven fights. With an unassailable lead of 6:1, however, they gave up two of the three following fights, so that the victory was included in the rating at 7:3.
The hosts from PSV Duisburg drew the harder fate for their first encounter with JC Holzwickede. Nevertheless, Dirk Assmann, weight class -81 kilograms, got off to a good start with a fight victory over the full duration against Hasan Djamaladin. As a result, Tobias Kirsch (-73 kilograms) was unable to continue his winning streak of the last league fighting days: After a short time he was in a stranglehold and was forced to give up immediately before the separating command of the referee. Alexander Heidrich, competing in the 90 kg class, fell behind Jonas Breier-Neteler. He did not manage to catch up during the fight, so the athlete from JC Hozwickede won over time. Niccolo Amato (-90 kilograms) then equalized against Mark Brexeler, before Lucian Gumny (-66 kilograms) lost another point to the team from the Unna district against Benedict Wolfsfeld. When the score was 2:3 from the Duisburg point of view, the outcome remained open before the second round. Here Dirk Assmann started and sent his opponent Marius Körner off the mat after just over a minute. Even in his revenge, Tobias Kirsch was unable to defeat Nikita Djadin: the young athlete from Holzwickede managed two techniques that together were enough to win him. Alexander Heidrich had little to counter against his 40 kilogram heavier opponent Daniel Meisner, who knew how to use the weight difference to his advantage. Since another defeat would have been enough to lose the match at 3:5, Niccolo Amato was under pressure in his fight against Jonas Breier-Neteler. At the end of the regular fight time – both fighters were already visibly exhausted – the scoring boards on both sides were empty. In the subsequent extra time, however, Amato developed tactical advantages; his opponent received three penalties for this, which meant victory for PSV Duisburg. In the final fight, Anton Serdyuk fought for a draw for Duisburg. The 16-year-old judoka kept the events on the mat open for a long time, but made a crucial mistake after three and a half minutes. Like the two previous encounters, PSV’s against JC Holzwickede ended in a sobering 4:6. The encounter against the team from JC 66 Bottrop was initially similar: Dirk Assmann started with a win. Tobias Kirsch then regained his form against Luca Fiedler and won the fight within a minute. This should have been the last Duisburg victory for the time being, because Jan-Luca Schmitz (+90 kilograms), Niccolo Amato and Anton Serdyuk all had to admit defeat to their Bottrop opponents in a row. 2:3 so the intermediate result here too. When asked how the defeat could be averted this time, the PSV athletes knew the right answer: with a different line-up, the Duisburgers managed to defeat the Bottrop team. Christian Olberz went to the fighting area up to 81 kilograms and left the mat as the winner. Tobias Kirsch was once again convincing and didn’t even give his opponent a chance, sending him off the mat after just 15 seconds. Justus Galla brought his Waza-ari against Dirk Assmann (now +90 kilograms) over time. But Alexander Heidrich (-90 kilograms) even gave PSV Duisburg the 5:4 lead with a sensational holding technique in the ground fight against Ragnar Buddenkotte. Nicolas Kutscher from JC 66 Bottrop then dashed Duisburg’s hopes of a comeback victory with his strong performance against Lucian Gumny. The draw of 5:5 is a small success for the PSV league team after a 2:3 deficit. Overall, however, the team from Duisburg still falls short of their own expectations. On the last day of the fight on August 21st, however, the team wants to convert their potential into victories again against SSF Bonn and JG Ibbenbüren.
