Maze had many world class Matches, but Timo is superior to Maze in many aspects, first of all consistency, but also motivation and versatility. Maze is lacking in many things to be a complete world class player. A very important shot he misses is the lightning fast forehand counter topspin against hard and fast attacks. Maze can only hold the racket and block in a passive way if he is lucky and then gets killed with the next shot most of the time. Also his arm movement is very long and takes too much time to be ready for the next shot when close at the table. He is only world class when he attacks at the table and in midrange topspin rallies. On a good day he can beat anyone, but on bad day may loose against a "nobody". Timo even wins most of the time when he seems to loose, because he has this champion spirit and never gives up.

There was nothing wrong with his mentality he simply had a terrible forehand technique that destroyed his back just like Boll.He had an excellent backhand like many European players but without solid footwork he couldn't do much against top competition. Kreanga for sure was the biggest talent in Europe.With some solid coaching he could have been no1 in Europe after Waldner's and Persson's prime years.

@@dickn.ormous1064 I disagree, he has a poor backhand for this level of table tennis, he has even said so himself in a Q&A with Timo boll that he'd like to have bolls backhand. He's very talented but likes to play with a more entertaining yet less effective style and like others have said I don't think his technique is great plus he's plagued with injuries with a weaker backhand. Big fan however, wish he had a more successful career.

​@@religdeb Maybe Boll had a better backhand loop but his block was terrible so he was always forced to pivot against Asians which was equally bad to Maze.And Maze beat a top Chinese at the WTTC which Boll never did(Wang Hao in 2005).Boll of course had top physios who would treat his injuries whereas Denmark's TT program was piss poor forcing young Maze to train in Germany where they teached him Boll's spine twist style. See how much smoother Allan Bentsen played compared to Maze's German crippled style. Bentsen took up TT extremelly late but he had Swedish coaches who had reasonable ideas on how to play the forehand.

Lost motivation

Maybe 47?