February 11, 2010
Three Medals for the Butterflies at the Europe Top 12
Timo Boll
Timo Boll is in a class of his own in Europe. Germany’s number four of the world-ranking list secured the title for the fifth time at the continental ranking tournament Europe Top 12 in Duesseldorf. Now Boll only lacks two victories to draw even with the record champion Jan-Ove Waldner. Altogether three of the eight possible medals in Duesseldorf went to the ten Butterfly players who took part and achieved a noticeable result: apart from golden boy Boll, the Greek Kalinikos Kreanga and the Hungarian Krisztina Toth reached third places.
Bastian Steger
Timo Boll had to go up to his limits on the final day in front of 3200 spectators in sold out and enthusiastic “Burg-Waechter-Castello”. The former third of the WC Kalinikos Kreanga in the semi-finals as well as Vladimir Samsonov from White Russia in a repetition of the last year’s final forced the twice World-Cup-Winner to six sets and demanded top performances of the favorite of the tournament. Especially in the final against Samsonov, Boll had to survive a tricky situation in his chosen hometown, when he was walking down the loser’s road being 2:1 down in sets and 8:2 down in the fourth set. But once again the three times European Champion drew level to 2:2 and was in command of the final afterwards.
Werner Schlager
The tournament champion said following his fifth Europe Top 12 victory: “That were really tough matches for me today, especially against Vladi, as you could see. I am still not in absolute top form but I was fighting well and speedy.” Boll continues: “And like usual I can always rely on my material in every situation. Therefore I could go all the distance to the end and play my strokes with even more precision and rotation.” Greek’s reliable star arrived in excellent form and stressed Boll’s exceptional position with a sense of humor after the semi-final: “I have only got a chance against Timo if three things coincide: “I must play in mega top form, have a lot of luck and Timo must have had a bad night sleep.” Even Samsonov came up with a similar expression during the press conference after the final: “It’s about time that Timo let’s me win again…”
The German is a kind and polite person but he doesn’t dish out presents in form of victories, which also his teammate Christian Suess noticed in the quarterfinals, as Chen Weixing (Austria), and his Butterfly colleague Bastian Steger (Germany) also got to know during the group stages. Steger was allowed to play the tournament because the European Champion Michael Maze (Denmark) had to withdraw on short notice because of injury. Steger failed in the preliminary round despite good performances just like the Austrian Butterflies Werner Schlager and Robert Gardos, while Croatia’s routine player Zoran Primorac had a better ball difference in group B and the Ex-World-Champion Schlager lost out on the quarterfinals.
Robert Gardos
In the women’s competition the Dutch Li Jiao could win the tournament for the third time after 2007 and 2008. This time the best of the Butterflies was Krisztina Toth, who like always made life difficult for her opponents because of her good feeling for the ball and her spectacular balloon defense. The sympathetic left handed player earned her place in the semi-finals by two victories in the group against the European Champion Wu Jiaduo and the young Butterfly Daniela Dodean (Romania), who also beat Wu and reached the round of the final eight, as well as winning against the EC third Ruta Paskauskiene in the quarterfinals, before she was stopped in the semi-finals by the later winner. Already the preliminary round was the end of the Europe Top 12 tournament for the defending ace Viktoria Pavlovich as well as for Tamara Boros (Croatia), who both didn’t win a game.
After being in Germany for three years the prestigious tournament moves on to Liege (Belgium) next year and in 2011 the French town Strassbourg is the host.
Zoran Primorac
Daniela Dodean
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