A total of 32 China Open tournaments have been staged since 1996, the year in which the ITTF World Tour was inaugurated.

In that period of time, on no less than 29 occasions the men’s singles title has been won by a player from China; furthermore, a total of 28 times, the final has been an all Chinese affair. Some records may show that in 1996 in X’ian, Bulgaria’s Feng Zhe was the runner up beaten by Kong Linghui in the final; the fact he was the silver medallist is correct but at the time he was a member of the Chinese national team.

Moreover, only once has a Chinese player lost in the final to a player from foreign shores, the occasion was in 2006 when Wang Liqin was beaten by Germany’s Timo Boll.

Furthermore, Timo Boll is the only player not from China to have appeared in the men’s singles final on more than one occasion. The one other instance was in 2017 in Chengdu when he was beaten by colleague Dimitrij Ovtcharov in one of the strangest finals he must have ever witnessed. In the deciding seventh game, Timo Boll led 10-6, Dimitrij Ovtcharov threw caution to the wind, shut he eyes and promptly won the next six points (17-15, 7-11, 12-10, 11-9, 7-11, 6-11, 12-10).

Now in 2019 both are on duty. Timo Boll is the no.5 seed and notably partners Patrick Franziska in the doubles, surely a clue to German thinking with doubles being the opening match in the men’s team event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games; meanwhile, Dimitrij Ovtcharov is the men’s singles no.12 seed and is Ricardo Walther’s men’s doubles partner.

Both have impressive comparatively recent performances. In February at the CCB Europe Top 16 Cup in Montreux, Dimitrij Ovtcharov beat Timo Boll in the semi-finals, before progressing to secure the title at the final expense of Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus, also on duty in Shenzhen. Conversely last October at the Liebherr 2018 Men’s World Cup in Paris, Timo Boll overcame Dimitrij Ovtcharov in the penultimate round, before losing to China’s Fan Zhendong.

Fine performances but neither brought the house down at the recent Liebherr 2019 World Championships. Worthy efforts but we might have expected more; Dimitrij Ovtcharov was beaten in the third round by Croatia’s Tomislav Pucar, one round later when due to face Korea Republic’s Jang Woojin, Timo Boll was forced to withdraw through illness.

Read what you wish but both are vastly experienced, past results count for little, Shenzhen is a new challenge, a new venture. The next match is the most important, both are well aware of that fact.