(by Tom Lodziak)
How to play like Timo Boll(and beat the best player in the world)
Timo Boll is back in form. This makes me happy. For a while it seemed Timo was finished at the highest level. He suffered a few bad injuries. His age (now 36) was catching up with him. He was losing to players much below his ranking. My fear was that his form would gradually decline until his inevitable retirement.

But Timo Boll has had a fantastic 2017. He won the Korean Open – his first ITTF Pro Tour title for 7 years. He reclaimed the German National Championship (his 11th title) and he helped Germany become European team champions again.

And then he made it all the way to the final of the Men’s World Cup – his first final appearance for 5 years. On route to the final he beat upcoming Chinese player Lin Gaoyuan and in the semi-final he beat Ma Long, the current Olympic Champion, World Champion, world number 1 and possibly greatest player of all time.

Timo Boll is definitely back in form.

We can all learn from Timo Boll. I’ve watched a lot of his matches recently and I’m going to share some things he does particularly well.

So if you want to try and play a bit more like Timo Boll, here’s six things you should try and do…

Play closer to the table

Timo Boll often likes to play closer to the table and contact the ball early. Playing close means he can’t always wind up for big power shots, so instead he plays quick, shorter strokes to rush his opponent.

It doesn’t always look spectacular, but his early timing and quick strokes is very effective at pressuring his opponents and forcing them to play weaker shots or make errors. They simply have less time to react, as the ball is coming sooner than they would like.

Of course, he is equally comfortable moving back further from the table to play some bigger loops, but this doesn’t seem to be his default position. If he can win points and matches playing close to the table, without needing to always step back, this is what he will try and do.

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