|
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Head coach of the German men's table tennis team, Jorg Rosskopf, sounded a little bit helpless after losing Monday's team semifinal 3-1 to Japan at the Rio Olympic Games.
"We were sure that they'd put this lineup. And we wanted these two matches in the beginning," commented the former Olympic bronze medalist of men's singles in Atlanta 1996, referring to the right decision he'd made over the start list.
Leading one set up after Dimitrij Ovtcharov easing past Maharu Yoshimura 3-0, Germany sent on 35-year-old Timo Boll to face off with Japan's top male paddler, world No. 6 Jun Mizutani, who wasted no chance to beat the former No. 1 Boll 11-9, 11-5, 12-10.
The following doubles game almost set the tune for the match as Boll teamed up with Bastian Steger and lost 3-1 to Yoshimura and Koki NIwa, before Steger came up in the fourth game and surrendered easily to Mizutani 11-5, 11-4, 11-4.
"Japan was very strong today. The best match they ever played against us, I would say, especially Mizutani and the doubles they won points from. They deserved to win," said Boll.
"It was a little pity that I lost the first set after a high lead 7-2 and serving also at 9-9. This was maybe one of the key points in the game because we had 1-0 in upbeat," he added.
"The problem is that after losing the first, he was less self-confident," said Rosskopf.
Boll agreed with his coach about that, saying he's not able to "play so free and so aggressive any more".
"He played really good, but we have to say that the Japanese players were really fantastic," added Rosskopf as for the doubles. "It's not so easy to keep the ball over the table in a short-short position. Niwa played fantastic."
Asked if he would change the starting lineup, Rosskopf said: "We could, but we don't want to. That's the best lineup that we have."
"We decided in the last moment when we watching our opponents warming up," said Boll. "We took the right decision. But they just played better than us."
Germany will vie for a bronze medal against the losers from the other semifinal between China and South Korea, while Japan reaching their first final of Olympic table tennis on men's part.
