Maybe you can share with us your personal anecdotes with Timo Boll to let us know how you are so sure that he is above doing something that he finds fun in retirement and also happens to pay him handily?
He has been in discussions with USA TT ventures before. Him and Dima have also repeatedly visited a wealthy TT playing family in New Jersey many times in the last year or two, where they play with a USATT 2300 player and some others. But sure he is doing that out of the respect for the highest level of competition in the game and not because of the favors or lavish treatment he receives. He is also taking part in the Ping Pong movie where Timothee Chalamet plays Marty Reisman but sure he is not doing it for the money or because he finds it fun, but because he thinks a Hollywood movie about table tennis is holding the competitive game in the highest respects. And surely he is not being swayed by the financial compensation for this either.
Now I see where this mercenary view comes from....
with all due respect, 99% of us are also mercenaries.
If someone offers you a better salary, you would be silly not to seek better compensation.
We are not NPO or volunteers, we all need to feed our families and cost of living is increasing every year.
And using Timo Boll... well, he is/was the highest paid athlete in TTBL for how many years.
If he is so (what is the word for, no need for money?), then he should give all his earnings away or request minimum wage.
end of the day, Timo is a great person, a great sport, and he deserves being the highest paid table tennis player in Europe.
or seeking better rewards is mercenary, then I think the problem isn't these players, but rather the people calling it that.
And from my understanding of the word, it is seeking money at the expense of ethics.
So which table tennis player is a mercenary (loosing ethics?)
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