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Dang Qiu: "The day couldn't have gone better"
Photo:
Christian Kolbert / dpa
At the European Table Tennis Championships in Munich, Germans made it into the finals for both men and women.
Nina Mittelham prevailed in the German semi-final duel against last year's second Shan Xiaona 4:1.
Dang Qiu won the semifinals against the Swedish double world champion Mattias Falck 4:1 and is also in the final.
»The day couldn't have gone better.
You always dream of being in the final," said Qiu on the ARD microphone: "I'm trying to tackle the final like any other game." His final opponent on Sunday (4 p.m. / ZDF) is the Slovenian Darko Jorgic, winner of the Europe Top 16.
Mittelham's opponent in the final on Sunday (2.30 p.m. / ZDF) is the Austrian Sofia Polcanova, who defeated the German champion Sabine Winter 4:3 in the semifinals.
The defeated semi-finalists can console themselves with bronze medals.
Boll and Ovtcharov got out surprisingly early
Record European champion Boll and his long-time companion Dimitrij Ovtcharov, on the other hand, had to come to terms with surprisingly early defeats.
Eight-time European Championship champion Boll lost 4-0 to his Düsseldorf Bundesliga colleague Qiu in the quarter-finals, Ovtcharov lost 4-2 to Kristian Karlsson of Sweden.
The last European Championship without an individual medal for one of the two German table tennis stars was 17 years ago.
"I would have liked more resistance, but Dang played great," said Boll: "I just have to acknowledge that he's become super strong in recent years."
The preparation of the eight-time champion Boll was severely affected by the long-term effects of a broken rib.
Despite the problems and the clear defeat, Boll does not think about the end of his unique career.
»A game like that is tough when it ends so clearly, but I still have a lot of fun playing table tennis.
I'm already looking forward to the next training session with Dang.«
Ovtcharov struggled with missed chances in the first and third sets (9:11 each).
"That's atypical for me," said the two-time European champion, who had been out for months due to an ankle injury, on ARD.
The strength is back "okay, I'm quite fit again, but when you've been out for so long, there's a lot missing," said Ovtcharov.
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