Some of you forget that the chinese have studied boll and dima inside out and know almost everything about their style of play mentality& strategies if not everything.
Boll and dima on the other hand dont have the same knowledge over the chinese. Its not the only factor that decides an outcome, but the chinese have definitely an advantage over them . If you check the results from 2011 and after boll's ratio is close to 50 % if not more.
The only exception is 2014 where he didnt compete much and won only 1 time and lost 5 or 6. Some results are not recorded in ratings central so a percentage 50 % win or more is pretty damn astonishig for a player who does not train regularly in china and his only knowledge is what the chinese coach provides for his opponent
http://www.ratingscentral.com/EventDetail.php?EventID=10251#P5110
http://www.ratingscentral.com/EventDetail.php?EventID=13244#P5110
Ovtcharov on the other hand is definitely over rated when comparing him to the chinese, because from the remaining european players only dima has won some games here and there against the chinese, so europe fans have no other player to look up to
That does not put him in equal position with boll, because boll and samsonov are somehow "small waldners" in terms of consistency. They have world cups, world champ medals beating consecutive chinese players one after the other in big tours and pro tours
Dima's best achievement was his ZJK win in 2014 (Im not even putting olympics bronze because crisan & maze definitely did him a favor there) and 2010 against wang hao. He is very inconsistent in his performance even among "lower rated" europe players, which comes out as a surprise but it is not if you see things objectively
If I would have to describe dima I would say he could beat FZD or ZJK in round of 16 for example and then lose to niwa,freitas or whatever player is considered "below" him when compared to the chinese.
He is like a roller coaster when things go his way but most of the times when the opponent figures out how to refute his serve/receive strategy he self destructs. Over the past 1-2 years its evident that he can win close games and fight under pressure which was clearly a problem in the past and lost many matches on 2-2,3-3 and almost never managed to overcome 2-0 or 3-0 3-1deficits. At least that is my impression of Dima, when the pressure was on, his win ratio was negative
My cards are on mizutani in this wttc because I really enjoyed his "inyourface" attitude in the olympics. Whatever the score he simply went nuts in every ball dont caring about the outcome while playing. Against XX it was fantastic to see him play 3 perfect points in 2-2 being 10-7 down.
Dima on the other hand has a great record against samsonov the past 4 years, but he lost the most important match (olympic singles) when he fell in vladi's jedi mind tricks who was injured during play and still managed to beat him. So I still think he has somes mental issues which hold him back.
