Born in 1981, Timo Boll is the most successful German table tennis player of all time. The left-hander was ranked number one on the world ranking list three times (in 2003 and 2011). Since 2002, he has been among the top 10 players in the world. No other player has won as many European championships seven in Men s Singles alone. After he led the world ranking for the first time in 2003 and then defeated the three best Chinese players one after the other to win the 2005 World Cup in Liège, Belgium, he was for many years considered THE most dangerous opponent for the Chinese aces. He is a world-class player who has also made a name for himself as one of the most fair players in the world.
Bernd-Ulrich Groß has been a table tennis coach for nearly 40 years. He has written five books and more than 300 professional articles about teaching and practicing table tennis. His book Table Tennis: Tips From a World Champion, under the 6th edition s title, Table Tennis Basics, is poised to become a standard work on table-tennis technique (G. Straub, TTL 3/2015). He held teaching positions for table tennis in Aachen (RWTH University), Germany, and Cologne (German Sport University). He retired from his full-time work in table tennis in 2001 and has been teaching PE and French at an Aachen high school ever since.
