Two fine wins for Japan’s Jun Mizutani but it was Germany’s Dimitrij Ovtcharov who punched the air in triumph after a fixture that lasted just over three and a half hours.

Germany beat Japan in a gruelling, mind sapping and physically exhausting contest on Wednesday 26th May 2010 in their first stage men’s team contest at the Liebherr World Team Championships.

The no.3 seeds, overcame Japan by three matches to two to retain their unbeaten record and end the unbeaten record of Japan.

Man of the match for Japan was Jun Mizutani, he beat both Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Timo Boll, the former in three straight games, the latter in a full distance five games duel that enthralled the attentive crowd.

Alas for Japan, Mizutani was to prove the only winner; Seiya Kishikawa suffered against both Timo Boll and in dramatic circumstances in opposition to Dimitrij Ovtcharov whilst in the vital third match of the fixture, Christian Suss defeated Kaii Yoshida in five games.

Defeat for Timo Boll, the man on whom much of Germany’s fortunes rest but he was positive and in jovial mood.

“I think the next time we play each other we should forget the first four matches and start at two-all!”, he said. “It’s always close when Germany meets Japan, we are two strong teams.”

Equally Boll was not too downhearted about his reverse.

“Yes, I lost a close match, now I must turn losing a close match to winning next time I’m involved in a close contests”, he added. “The main thing is the team won, that’s what counts.

The result means that Germany occupies first place with eight points, ahead of Japan with seven points.

Meanwhile, Spain and Hungary move into joint third place with six points each ahead of Denmark with five points and luckless Croatia who have yet to post a victory, with four points.

Spain emerged as comfortable winners over Denmark with Jesus Cantero beating Allan Bentsen, Carlos Machado defeating Finn Tugwell and Alfredo Carneros proving too experienced for Christian Kongsgaard.

An impressive victory and similarly, the Hungarians were in form.

They recorded a three-one success over Croatia with Janos Jakab the backbone of victory.

He beat both Roko Tosic and Andrej Gacina with Daniel Kosiba adding the one further Hungarian win; in the first match of the duel, he defeated Gacina.

The one Croatian success came from Ivan Juzbasic. He beat Ferenc Pazsy in the third match of the fixture.