Center
2nd defeat in 3 days for Boll
Updated: 2011-03-02 19:59
(Xinhua)
BEIJING -- With the top seeds' head-to-head resulting in favor of the hosts, Asia claimed a straight third-year victory over the European table tennis All-Stars here on Wednesday and pocketed 57,000 euros winners' prize money.
The current world No. 1 and Germany's golden boy, Timo Boll, was beaten by China's 23-year-old sensation Zhang Jike once again in just three days after losing the German Open final in straight sets on Sunday.
"I played quite good at the beginning," said Boll after the 11-5, 11-7, 5-11, 11-5 defeat. "I just have to play better to get a chance, because he is a good player. This was not my day."
Both Boll and Zhang did not have a good preparation for the two-day event as the duo could just make it in time to flight from Dortmond to Beijing.
"There's not much preparation, but also he was in the same situation," admitted the best European paddler in the last decade. "Zhang was just the better player today."
"I will think about what I can do better, maybe everything of me should be just more speedy. That's the reason why I'm here. I'll try to improve and hope I could be a better player," he added.
In the other plays, South Korean chopper Joo Se Hyuk beat Adrian Crisan of Romania 11-4, 7-11, 11-8, 14-12, and Hong Kong's Tang Peng nipped a 12-10, 11-9, 11-5 easy win over former world cup winner Werner Schlager of Austria.
The night's two defeats for Asia came as Japanese Jun Mizutani, who's in sick, was beaten by Belarus veteran Vladimir Samsonov 11-9, 11-7, 8-11, 7-11, 11-4 and Chuan Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei lost to Portugal's Tiago Apolonia 11-7, 6-11, 11-6, 11-6.
The March 1-2 All-Star challenge is the third edition of the Asia vsEuropeAll-Star Challenge co-hosted by the Asian and European federations of table tennis associations. The former two editions all concluded inAsia's victories.
The return leg of this year's All-Stars will be inMinskin the last week of October.
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