The German table tennis star Timo Boll was eliminated in the first round of the WTT Champions tournament in Frankfurt am Main.
The 42-year-old record European champion lost in 1:3 sets against the South Korean Lee Sang Su on the opening day of the event.
The competition in the new “World Table Tennis” tournament series is the first international table tennis tournament in Germany since the coronavirus pandemic. With prize money of $500,000, it is worth around twice as much as the last German Open competitions in 2020 in Magdeburg and 2019 in Bremen. For men, 25 of the top 30 players in the current world rankings are competing in Frankfurt.
Boll was only allowed to start the tournament with a wildcard because a serious shoulder injury caused him to fall to number 62 in the world rankings in the first half of the year. The 33-year-old Lee Sang Su won the bronze medal in the individual at the 2017 World Championships in Düsseldorf.