Ruta Paskauskiene is the successor of Holland’s Li Jiao. The 31 year old Lithuanian beat Liu Jia from Austria in six games to be crowned European champion at the Liebherr European Championships on Sunday 12th October.
The indisputable European table tennis tsar is Germany’s Timo Boll. The 27 year old world no. 7 overcame Belarusian Vladimir Samsonov in six games. Therewith Boll defeated all three gold medals he already won a year ago as the first player in history.
Facts about the Ruta Paskauskiene
Behind the successes of Paskauskiene and Boll there are some interesting facts. Current world no. 90 Paskauskiene was not among the favourites for the title. She reached as her best result so far was the quarter-finals 2003 at the European Championships in Courmayeur. However, she already won three times gold in the Mixed Doubles and three times bronze in the Women’s Doubles. The title in St. Petersburg at the age of 31 is the first big win in a Singles event.
Facts about the Timo Boll
Timo Boll for his part has definitely become Europe’s figurehead of table tennis. The German had a mammoth programme in St. Petersburg with 21 matches (seven Singles, five Doubles and nine Team matches) within nine days. Boll was 1-3 down with his Partner Christian Süss in the Doubles final against Schlager/Keen; in the Team event he won the title in spite of two personal defeats against Werner Schlager and Vladimir Samsonov; in the Singles eventually Boll found his best form. The German won all matches 4-0 except against Michael Maze in the quarter-final and Vladimir Samsonov in the final.
"At the end I was maybe just less tired than Vladimir", Boll explained after the match. "We both fought the fatigue. During the Olympic preparation I’ve learned to torture myself. For sure that helped me today."
Men’s Singles Event
Final:
BOLL, Timo (GER) - SAMSONOV, Vladimir (BLR): 4-2 (-12 10 5 7 -7 5)
3rd place:
GARDOS, Robert (AUT) and SCHLAGER, Werner (AUT): 4-0
Women’s Singles Event
Final
PASKAUSKIENE, Ruta (LTU) - LIU, Jia (AUT) 4-2 (7 9 8 -13 -7 
3rd place:
TAN MONFARDINI, Wenling (ITA) and TOTH, Krisztina (HUN): 4-2
Men’s Doubles Event
Final:
BOLL, Timo / SUSS, Christian (GER) - SCHLAGER, Werner (AUT) / KEEN, Trinko (NED): 4-3 (-9 8 -7 -7 8 8 6)
3rd place:
FREITAS, Marcos / APOLONIA, Tiago (POR) and SVENSSON, Robert / PERSSON, Jon (SWE)
Women’s Doubles final:
TOTH, Krisztina / POTA, Georgina (HUN) - TAN MONFARDINI, Wenling / STEFANOVA, Nikoleta (ITA): 4-2 (-6 4 9 -11 6 10)
3rd place:
XU, Jie / PARTYKA, Natalia (POL)
PAVLOVICH, Veronika (BLR) / FADEEVA, Oksana (RUS)
Source: www.ittf.com
