G Sathiyan's dream run at the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Men's World Cup came to an end after the Indian went down to former world number one Timo Boll, in Chengdu, on Saturday.
The world number 30 Sathiyan, making his World Cup debut, went down 1-4 (11-7, 8-11, 5-11, 9-11, 8-11) to the German in the pre-quarters.
Sathiyan started on a bright note, taking a 1-0 lead, but the experienced Boll replied quickly to level the match.
The two-time World Cup champion then dominated the tie, winning the next three games without much trouble.
On Friday, Sathiyan had defeated higher ranked Frenchman Simon Gauzy 11-13, 9-11, 11-8, 14-12, 7-11, 11-5, 11-8 before beating world number 24 Groth Jonathan of Denmark 11-9, 7-11, 11-5, 11-6, 11-2, to top his group and reach the round of 16.
"The moment I realised how good I have played in my debut ITTF World Cup is when the entire Chinese crowd gave me a loud applause on leaving the match hall !! Put up a great fight but lost out to the legendary Timo Boll 1-4 in Last 16 !!" Sathiyan later wrote on his Twitter handle.
"It was a great learning experience & definitely one of the best performances in my career so far with two good back to back wins against higher ranked players! More to come Thanks to my personal coach Raman sir & also masseur Amarjit Singh for helping me to bring out my best."
