A severe setback for the Olympic hopes of veteran Timo Boll spoiled the joy of both teams in the camp of the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB) at the European Championships in Malmö about the round of 16. The 42-year-old European Championship record winner unexpectedly had to accept a damper on his ambitions to return to his former strength after a month-long injury break in the DTTB men’s 3-1 win against Poland against 25-year-old nobody Milosz Redzimski.
Despite Boll’s 1-1 defeat, the German defending champions in their group of three secured their befitting place in the top 16 after their 3-0 win against Finland the day before “Mission to defend the title” with a 3-0 win against Austria, also as group winners, after the team around Nina Mittelham (Berlin), runner-up at the European Championship, started the European Championship last Sunday with a 3-0 win against England.
The DTTB aces don’t yet know their next opponents for the decisive encounters. The knockout phase of the title fights doesn’t begin until Thursday. The draw will take place on Tuesday after all preliminary round games have ended. The congress of the European association ETTU is scheduled for the Wednesday without games.
Boll weakens on day 2
One day after a better training game against a Finnish underdog, Boll showed unsteady performances in the duel with Poland. The European Championship record winner barely found his way into the game against teenager Redzimski. In the later top singles against Ochsenhausen’s Bundesliga professional Samuel Kulczycki, the Düsseldorf left-hander mostly dominated and flashed his possibilities several times in his four-set win.
The team vice world champions Benedikt Duda (Bergneustadt) and Ricardo Walther scored the first two points for the DTTB team, in which the three highest-ranked players in the world rankings (Dimitrij Ovtcharov, Dang Qiu, Patrick Franziska) are missing due to training measures in Germany.
National coach Tamara Boros rotated in the women’s team and, for the first time in the course of the European Championship, lined up world number ten Ying Han (Tarnobrzeg/Düsseldorf) and German champion Sabine Winter (Dachau). Both scored points against Austria just as well as Mittelham again.