Table Tennis Profile: Vladimir Samsonov the ''Tai Chi Master''
Vladimir Samsonov was born in the capital city of Belarus and was only six years old when he started playing table tennis. He was born on April 17, 1976 at the time when Minsk was part of the USSR and Samsonov played for the youth table tennis squad for
the Soviet Union.
He is currently at the eighth position as per the ITTF World ranking of May 2011 and is famous for his all round performance all over the world. He is known as the “Tai Chi Master” in China for the same reason.
Samsonov won the medal during his first appearance in European Junior Championships and it was only the matter of two years when he secured the European Junior Singles Championship in Luxembourg. His fans in Germany called him Vladi during the European Championships.
Vladimir is ranked as the Number one player in his country and he is ranked at the second position in Europe after Germany’s Timo Boll after he lost to him in the 2007 final of the European Table Tennis Championships
Once Belarus was separated from the Soviet Union, Vladimir started practicing at the German Table Tennis Union training centre in Heidelberg as he moved to the regional league of Bayern Munchen and started polishing his skills. He won the Junior Singles
European Championship event for the second time in 1993 followed by a silver medal in the Men’s doubles two years later. The first big win of his career came in 1997 when he won the European Masters Cup.
One of the most controlled wins by Vladimir came in 2005 when he faced Ma Long during the Liebherr German Open Finals and it was truly experience against youth as the Chinese young star was only 17 while Samsonov was 30 at that point. Nevertheless, Ma Long
had qualified for the finals and he had the skills and talent required by any top ranked player at the highest level.
Samsonov had already lost to Ma Lin and Wang Hao both from China, just a month prior to the German Open finals and fans across the globe believed that Vladimir did not have the expertise to beat the Chinese players. The Belarus player had a shaky start to
the game as Ma Long won the first two sets at 11-6 and 11-8 but Vladimir came back and won the third set at 11-3.
Ma Long came back in the fourth game as he overcame Samsonov’s lead of 6-3 and won the set by 11-7 as both players displayed a splendid show in the final that was edging towards a conclusion. After winning the fourth set the Chinese only needed one more
game to win the best of seven but the experience of Vladimir paid off as he dominated the arena by winning the next two games at 11-5 and 11-4.
Samsonov has won the Kuwait Open, Belarus Open and Slovenian Open in 2008, Men’s Singles titles at Chinese Taipei Open in 2007. He lost to the German table tennis sensation Timo Boll in 2007 as the game prolonged to four sets and Samsonov won the set 11-8
after losing the first three sets at 7-11, 7-11 and 3-11 when Timo finished the game wining the fourth set at 11-8 at the European Table Tennis Championship.
Vladimir is currently getting ready for the Liebherr Men’s Table Tennis World Cup as he has received an invitation from the ITTF to participate in the event scheduled from November 11-13, 2011. The event will be held in Paris and he will be looking ahead
to equal the record of Ma Lin who holds the honour of winning the event four times in 2000, 2003-04 and 2006. Vladimir has already secured the top position at the World Cup on three occasions as he won the event in 1999, 2001 and 2009. It will be interesting
to see how the Belarus Champion exhibits his brilliance at the World Cup.
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