Killerspin’s Chen Qi was in superb form on the third day of play, Saturday 20th March 2010, at the German Open in Berlin, the fourth ITTF Pro Tour tournament of the year.

In the third round of the Men’s Singles event he annihilated Austria’s Chen Weixing in four straight games, before beating the 5,000 strong crowd’s favourite, Timo Boll in a momentous seven games quarter-final showdown.

On occasions Chen Qi produced the ridiculous, forehand topspins through the eye of a needle that left Timo Boll stranded and the crowd stunned.

However, there was much more to Chen Qi’s performance than flashes of brilliance. He displayed a superb attitude, a will to win, a strong character and he succeeded with the partisan crowd totally supporting his illustrious adversary.

In the vital seventh game the momentum swung in favour of Timo Boll, it seemed the crowd would get their way. Chen Qi had other ideas.

Playing close to the table, excelling near the net and not retreating on the backhand, a recipe for disaster against Chen Qi, Timo Boll led 5-2 when the players changed ends.

He increased his lead to 6-2 with errors starting to emanate from the Chen Qi racket, it seemed the Chinese star’s concentration was starting to wander; in fact it was quite the reverse.

Chen Qi recovered to trail 6-7, he lost the next point but then won the next two. Timo Boll moved ahead 9-8; then two points to Chen Qi. It was match point.

Timo Boll saved the match point and he saved again at 10-11 but he could not perform the feat a third time; Chen Qi won the game 13-11, he clenched his fist in triumph. He was quiet, he shook hands with Timo Boll, patted his adversary on the back in commiseration and then shook hands with his coach.

It was not Liu Guoliang, he had been advising Ma Long against Dimitrij Ovtcharov, the man sitting courtside was team mate Hao Shuai.

However Liu Guoliang, the Chinese Men’s Team Head Coach was quick to respond. He walked briskly to table no.2 to shake hands and give Chen Qi a nod of approval.

Victory for Chen Qi and soon after there was another success; partnering Ma Long, the pair beat national team compatriots Wang hao and Xu Xin to book their place in the Men’s Doubles final.

It was a contest in which Chen Qi was outstanding, he was the architect, he made the openings for Ma Long who duly obliged.

Skill, unbridled skill, to watch Chen Qi play on Saturday 20th March 2010 was a great exper