For table tennis European champion Timo Boll (Düsseldorf), hopes for a big payday were not fulfilled at the premiere of the elite Grand Smash format in Singapore, which was endowed with two million dollars.
After his second-round exit on his comeback at world level after his severe abdominal muscle injury at the World Cup in Houston last fall with a 2: 3 win against the Japanese Yukiya Uda, the world number one thoughtfully prepared for the journey home, not only because of a missed match point in the fourth set Germany before.
“These weren’t two good games for me at this tournament. In training I sometimes feel quite good, but in the game I just lack the confidence and the naturalness to make the right decisions,” summed up the 41-year-old WM -Third: “I have to keep working on myself. The two-month break has brought me a lot physically, because I’ve been really pain-free for years. But my level has suffered quite a bit.”
For Boll, who had knocked out Brazilian Gustavo Tsuboi at the start of the premium competition of the new WTT tournament series, the premature end of his race for the winner’s check for Singapore for $100,000 meant the second setback after his comeback on the international stage. At the end of February at the Europe Top 16 Cup in Montreux, Switzerland, the record tournament winner was eliminated in the semifinals.
While Boll had to settle for 10,000 dollars from the record prize pool, top 20 players Patrick Franziska (Saarbrücken), double European champion Dang Qiu (Düsseldorf) and double European champion Nina Mittelham (Berlin) already have 15,000 each after reaching the round of 16 dollar bonus for sure.
In the doubles competitions, two combinations of the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB) are already in the quarterfinals.