Other Events | 16 Nov 2013

MITTELHAM reached Round of 16 at premiere

After three days of matches at the GAC Group 2013 ITTF World Tour, German Open, Super Series in Berlin, 8 players are still in game in men’s Singles Event, whilst five women from the Old Continent reached Round of 16. Host nation will have most of the rep

After three days of matches at the GAC Group 2013 ITTF World Tour, German Open, Super Series in Berlin, 8 players are still in game in men’s Singles Event, whilst five women from the Old Continent reached Round of 16.

Host nation will have most of the representatives in today’s matches. Timo BOLL, Dimitrij OVTCHAROV and Bastian STEGER, the three players who had represented Germany at the London 2012 Olympic Games, all recorded wins. The no.2 seed, Timo Boll beat Sweden’s Pär GERELL, Dimitrij OVTCHAROV, the no.3 seed, accounted for China’s LIANG Jingkun, whilst Bastian STEGER, the no.15 seed, defeated Singapore’s WU Zhikang.

Dimitrij OVTCHAROV was stretched to full distance in the second round against JUNG Youngsik .“That was a hard bit of work. Especially in the first 2 games he played very well. For me it was unusual to be down, in my past matches I usually took the lead. I changed my tactics a little, and apart from that the crowd help me massively tonight. Fans were there for me and motivated me to fight back”.

Andrej GACINA OF Croatia Beat Adrian CRISAN OF Romania in Round of 32, but for the place in the quarters he will meet ZHANG Jike of China, tomorrow. Tiago APOLONIA of Portugal overcame CHEN Chien An of Taipei and in next Round another Chinese player will meet him – FAN Zheondong. Vladimir SAMSONOV of Belarus will play against ZHOU Yu of China after he overcame Kenji MATSUDARIA of Japan.

Vladimir SAMSONOV said:“Both my matches today were really tough. It takes a little bit of time to get used to the hall and the conditions, so I was not quite at my best. My second match was better than my first one, so I am improving. I am very satisfied that I am still in the tournament and hopefully I can play better tomorrow. In my first game I played against KARLSSON for the first time. He had really good chances to beat me. In the 3rd set he had some set balls, but he took too much risk. He could have hit it safe to my backhand and I could have missed. Oh well it was good for me! “I have played Kenji a few times. The last time we played I won 4-0, the game before was 4-3 to me. Today it was tough again, but I won pretty easily in the end.”

Marcos FREITAS of Portugal beat Alexey SMIRNOV of Russia and now will meet CHUANG Chih-Yuan of Taipei. Dimitrij OVTCHAROV of Germany will play against Masato SHIONO of Japan and Liam PITCHFORD will meet another Japan’s player Kenta MATSUDAIRA.

“I am playing the best table tennis of my life. I tried to play the same way as yesterday, which was positive and aggressive, and it worked again. Playing against OH was amazing, he has been a legend in table tennis. I felt confident in the match as I competitive all the way through. Even the games I did lose, I was leading in them at some stage. Thankfully I took the last 2 sets and won. I have known Gao Ning a long time. My plan was to hit a lot of spin to his back hand as his back hand is not as strong as his forehand. It has been a long day, 3 games in 3 hours and I am about to play another match. Next I play Kenta MATSUDAIRA. I played against him Poland and I had chances, so I will just go out there and play free and hopefully cause another upset,” said Liam PITCHFORD At the bottom of the draw Timo BOLL will play against Bastian STEGER in all-German duel.

“I’m quite please that I’m still in the tournament. I played acceptably. When I was in the lead, everything was much easier, like in a flow. I hardly practiced in the past 2 months because of a shoulder injury and the flu, so it takes me a while to get used to stressful match situations. Some people tell me that I’ve got some kind of talent for table tennis, but after a long break it also takes me a while to get back to where I was. In the training sessions I played more released then here,” explained BOLL.

In Women’s Singles Event HAN Ying of Germany will play against Germany’s WU Jiaduo, Nina MITTELHAM young European champion in junior category, reached the Round of 16 and tomorrow she will play against Ai FUKUHARA of Japan. 16 year-old Nina is playing at her first ever ITTF World Tour tournament. Today she excelled all expectations to beat Romania’s Elizabeta SAMARA, the no.10 seed, in six games.

“It’s cool to play such a huge tournament. There are so many spectators over here and I get a lot of support. It’s completely different to junior events or in German Bundesleague. I’m really happy. I proceeded this far in the main draw. I haven’t thought I could. As I was ill before the tournament I could only practice for 4 days before the German Open. It was the first time that I played against SAMARA, so I tried a few things. I started with a good service and then move on aggressively, force the opponent to react to my game. I started well in game 1, had 9-5 and 10-8 in the lead. It’s shame that I lost. When I was 6-10 down in the 6th game I thought I didn’t want to play another game and surprised her with a few balls she could not expect – I played without pressure – and could turn this game and win the match,” said Nina.

LI Xue of France will meet WEN Jia of China. LI beat Spain’s Galia DVORAK, who had ousted Japan’s Kasumi ISHIKAWA, the no.2 seed in the first round.