Nextlevel, did you see the match? Any insights?
Yes. I am not sure why people are blaming Rosskopf. Anyone following Russian league knows that Mizutani has been beating Dima and Samsonov recently - he has even joined their team to prevent Orenburg from having any serious competition in Russia now. So changing order would not have done much. Not even sure Boll in current condition can beat Yoshimura. Yoshimura is higher ranked than Niwa for people who have not looked at the ITTF rankings recently. In these team events, it is very valuable to have the best player or a player that can beat everyone on the other team. That limits the other team's options. So Japan was okay if Dima played Jun, but they were okay if Dima did not play Jun as their doubles is better. I personally believe Mizutani is at ZJK level right now. They would play a good match if they were allowed to play each other.
Rosskopf was really hoping that historical head to head and Boll vs lefties would help them get the win they needed, Mizutani is new Mizutani and Boll is not Boll. But I am sure Rosskopf knew they were the worse team and had to hope that Boll would deliver. I expected better than 3-0 thrashing but I already saw how Boll struggled with CCA and Mizutani is on a different level now. Boll is also older so daily play is not as easy.
The other thing is that German team, probably because of Boll's injuries and their European league formats, doesn't take doubles seriously, so none of the Doubles teams are fully practiced. Niwa and Yoshimura are established doubles players and have been playing doubles together for a long time, sometimes even in junior years.
I think an objective ranking for Germany as a team is probably #4. Korea tomorrow is a better *Team*, again with an established doubles pair and three top 20 players, one arguably top 10 with JYS, and the real hope will depend on whether Boll or Steger can beat Joo, but there are more matchups that Germany can win Korea than they can win vs. JApan. But Boll plays defence really well so that will be the hope.
Curious how long Mizutani can keep this level and whether he can even improve it honestly.