Seeds tumble in table tennis

Former world number one Timo Boll suffers an upset loss to Adrian Crisan of Romania

I / London July 31, 2012, 13:53 IST

Former world number one Timo Boll was dumped out of the Olympic table tennis tournament, suffering an upset loss to Adrian Crisan of Romania.

The fourth-seeded Boll went down 11-9, 8-11, 15-13, 12-10, 11-6 to Crisan, the world number 27, who played above himself while saving two game points in the pivotal third game here yesterday.

It was particularly disappointing for Boll, who had predicted that this could be an Olympics in which the Chinese could be seriously challenged.

"I'm exceptionally disappointed," he said. "I tried to be more relaxed, but at the Olympics you get pressure, you get stressed and your service becomes unsafe. Then your whole game is not like it used to be.

"In the end he was cleverer. This is not normal when I play against him. Today he played some fantastic shots.

"When I was attacking, usually I am strong in this situation and win the point. But he was great, congratulations to him."

By contrast, the other left-hander who might challenge China, Michael Maze, produced one of his best wins, overcoming Jun Mizutani, the third-seeded Japanese by 11-7, 11-6, 11-4, 11-6.

The former European champion from Denmark has rarely played better, and suggested that he had completely recovered from the knee problems which had lasted for two years and which he described as "complete hell."