Liam Pitchford ran into Timo Boll at his imperious best as the European champion ended his Austrian Open run in the last 16.

After his brilliant win over Jun Mizutani yesterday, Pitchford would have had plenty of confidence going into the match, especially as he had beaten Boll at this tournament last year.

But the German was both irresistible force and immovable object as everything Pitchford threw at him came back, it seemed, twice as fast.

Pitchford was never able to engineer an opening in any of the four games as Boll ran away to a 4-0 (11-5, 11-3, 11-7, 11-3) victory.

In the quarter-finals, he will play compatriot Dimitrij Ovtcharov, who defeated Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto 4-3 in his last-16 tie.