(by Steve Hopkins)

Forty two is just a number – Or at least that is the message being delivered by Germany aging star.  Timo Boll has won the Final, turning back the clock, at the WTT Contender Series event in Doha this week.   Boll defeated Tomokazu Harimoto in a thrilling 4-3 Final (-8, 9, 6, -6, -8, 9, 8).

The results help both players significantly in this Olympic year.  The 250 second place points should move World No. 11 Harimoto back up the ranks (likely to No. 9).  But for Boll who had fallen all the way to No. 182, the 400 first place points will vault him from Germany’s 12th ranked player all the way up to Germany’s 5th ranked player (a very important distinction for an Olympic team that is likely to include five players).

Harimoto had squeezed past two consecutive tight rounds just to get to the Final – two 3-2 wins over Simon Gauzy in the Quarters and Shunsuke Togami in the Semis. For a time, it looked like Harimoto might fight his way through a third tight match, but it was Boll that pulled away late in the seventh game of the Final.

For Timo Boll, this is a great start to 2024. Playing like his younger self (maybe a much younger self), the 42 year old logged solid wins over Jang Woojin (World No. 12), Lee Sang Su (World No. 27), Lin Yun-Ju (World No. 7), and Harimoto (World No. 11).  These are the types of wins we have grown to expect from the former World No. 1 – and perhaps these are the types of wins his National Team will need from him if Germany is to make a deep run later this year at the Paris Olympics.

Elsewhere in Doha, Jeon Jihee topped Yubin Shin in the all-Korean Women’s Final, Jeon and Shin teamed up to win Women’s Doubles, Lim and Lee won Men’s Doubles, and in the only event with the top Chinese players competing, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha won Mixed Doubles over Lin Gaoyuan and Wang Manyu.

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