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By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff reporter
The South Korean campaign came to an abrupt end at the World Table Tennis Team Championships as the men's team suffered a semifinal setback against Germany in Moscow, Saturday.
While the highest-ranked Joo Se-hyuk won, Oh Sang-eun and Ryu Seung-min failed to overcome Timo Boll, each losing to the world No. 3, as South Korea lost 3-1.
At the previous competition two years ago, South Korea had a comfortable win over the Europeans in the quarterfinals. However, with the addition of Boll, Germany was the team to beat with the highest-ranked non-Chinese player in their corner.
In the opening game, Athens Olympics gold medalist Ryu Seung-min was beaten by Boll in three straight games, adding another loss to his previous 1-8 record in past encounters.
The pressure on the Korean side increased as Dimitrij Ovtcharov stunned veteran Oh Sang-eun in five games in the second match-up. Losing the second and third sets in a row, the 13th-ranked Oh tied things up by winning the fourth but couldn't turn the tables in the end.
Joo found a breakthrough in the third game as the sole Korean player in the world's top 10 rankings breezed past Christian Suss in three straight sets, but Boll didn't allow Korea the chance to get back into the match with another shutout win against Oh in the next game.
Facing match point, trailing 10-7 in the third set, Oh rallied to make it 10-9 but that was as close as he got.
The women's side was ousted in the quarterfinals by Japan on Friday, after an epic duel that was only five minutes shy of five hours.
Dang Ye-seo's loss in the third game was crucial. After winning the first two sets her opponent, Kasumi Ishikawa hit back to take the next three for a stunning upset.
Hyun Jung-hwa's squad was edged out by Japan 3-2 even though veteran Kim Kyung-ah picked up two victories over Ai Fukuhara and Sayaka Hirano. The first four games each needed five full sets to decide a winner, before Fukuhara retired Park Mi-young in four sets in the final match.
Before the tournament, the men's team had targeted a place in the finals to try and upset the ever-dominant China, while the women's team goal was reaching the semifinals.
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