G. Sathiyan’s dream run at the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Men’s World Cup came to an end after the Indian went down to former World No. 1 Timo Boll here on Saturday.
The World No. 30 Sathiyan, making his World Cup debut, went down 1-4 (11-7, 8-11, 5-11, 9-11, 8-11) to the German in the pre-quarterfinals.
Sathiyan started on a bright note, taking a 1-0 lead, but the experienced Boll replied quickly to level the match.
The two-time World Cup champion then dominated the tie, winning the next three games without much trouble.
On Friday, Sathiyan had defeated higher ranked Frenchman Simon Gauzy 11-13, 9-11, 11-8, 14-12, 7-11, 11-5, 11-8, before beating World No. 24 Groth Jonathan of Denmark 11-9, 7-11, 11-5, 11-6, 11-2, to top his group and reach the round of 16.
“The moment I realised how good I have played in my debut ITTF World Cup is when the entire Chinese crowd gave me a loud applause on leaving the match hall! “Put up a great fight but lost out to the legendary Timo Boll 1-4 in Last 16!” Sathiyan tweeted later. later wrote on his twitter handle.
“It was a great learning experience & definitely one of the best performances in my career so far with two good back-to-back wins against higher-ranked players! More to come Thanks to my personal coach Raman sir & also masseur Amarjit Singh for helping me to bring out my best.”
