Wang and Timo reach the finals of the Volkswagen Cup
The Volkswagen cup is in progress at Guangzhou, China. The event which kicked off on the 23rd of March 2011 will continue for two days. The semi finals were played at the Tianhe Gymnasium, China.
The semi finals featured two European players and two Asian players. Timo Boll world number one player on the International Table Tennis Federation ITTF World ranking from Germany faced Jun Mizutani from Japan. In the second semi final Vladimir faced Wang
Hao the current number two on the ITTF ranking.
Timo defeated Jun in a match extended to six games (7-11, 6-11, 11-1, 11-9, 11-5, 11-4). This was the 14th encounter of the two players on the international table tennis circuit, the only time Jun was able to defeat Timo was at the Liebherr World
Championship in the men’s singles event.
Timo did not have a good start and he lost the first two games of the match but he made an early recovery and won the next four games of the match. Timo used back hand strike against the Japanese player and high level rallies were played the aggression from
both sides was quite clear.
Timo said “Jun was very aggressive, I was really surprised how positive he was at the start of the match, I was really shocked and I think the match had some really great table tennis.”
In the second semi final it was Wang who showed no mercy against the Belarusian player Vladimir Samsonov and defeated him in four straight games. The Chinese player did not give any chance to Vladimir to overcome him and the final score was (11-5, 11-2, 11-9,
11-4).
Vladimir has always faced problems when it comes to play against Wang. They have met thirteen times earlier on the international table tennis circuit. Wang had won twelve times and this is his thirteenth victory against the 36 year old player.
The only time Vladimir was able to win against the Chinese player was in 2008 at the Kuwait Open, Salwa Cup where he defeated Wang in the quarter finals of the men’s single event.
Wang played an awesome game on the table, his topspins and his control over the table tennis ball proved his skill as the current holder of the current holder of the world champion title of the game.
The final of the match will be played amongst the top two players of the table tennis international circuit. Wang Hao is anticipating to have a very tough competition in the finals he said “I’m looking forward to playing Timo Boll; he’s the world no.1; so
it’s a challenge”.