Did Liu Shiwen misread the spin?

TTHopeful · Nov 9, 2015

Saw this topic on another site, does Liu Shiwen misread the spin or does the ball hit her thumb?

It's a good serve nevertheless.

Watch from 19.46

A few screen shots

TTFrenzy · Nov 10, 2015

definitely misread the spin. she thought it was pure sidespin or sideunder where it definitely had good amount of topspin in it despite the sidespin curve. I saw it on slow mo several times, she went for a hard push on bernie's deep BH, but I didnt see any thumb touching only rubber touch. I think if it did touch the thumb the ball wouldnt fly as much cause the finger is absorbing all the energy

Shuki · Nov 10, 2015

definitely hit her finger or something. watch the curve of the ball. if it hit the rubber it would have pushed toward the other direction.

TTFrenzy · Nov 10, 2015

Shuki said:
definitely hit her finger or something. watch the curve of the ball. if it hit the rubber it would have pushed toward the other direction.

her push was directed on the backhand side. look the slow mo, a ball flies like that when it has topspin on it. finger touch cannot give such a high trajectory

Shuki · Nov 10, 2015

you're right, after slowing it down i could see more clearly. i stand corrected.

raazzz · Nov 10, 2015

Can it be that it hit something on the table. LIU looks kind of weird on the table after the ball. Sick spin otherwise.

Hamasaki_Fanz · Nov 10, 2015

no, its not the spin. if it's the spin the ball would come to forehand side of szocscszcs

vvk1 · Nov 10, 2015

Here are the the 3 before contact/contact/after contact frames extracted from the 720p50 video from youtube (saved for your convenience in an imgur album http://imgur.com/a/X15Td).

.

The middle one clearly shows there is no magic here. If you don't believe me, go to http://www.clipconverter.cc/, paste the URL of the YT video, dowload the 720p50 version, and use VLC or SMplayer to play the point (19:49) frame by frame.

raazzz · Nov 10, 2015

Thats true Hamasaki_Fanz. I did not think about that. She probably hit her nail or something

Shuki · Nov 10, 2015

it didn't hit her nail. it hit the rubber. she has her chop pointed toward the opponents backhand side and the topspin pops it up more than expected.

TTFrenzy · Nov 10, 2015

Shuki said:
it didn't hit her nail. it hit the rubber. she has her chop pointed toward the opponents backhand side and the topspin pops it up more than expected.

Yep so much popup cannot be explained with a nail or finger touch. The ball had sidespin with very light topspin, the timing of liu was awful, the rubber didnt grip the ball correctly so it flew parallel with the table. Her face expression afterwards also indicates that nothing weird happened

TTFrenzy · Nov 10, 2015

Hamasaki_Fanz said:
no, its not the spin. if it's the spin the ball would come to forehand side of szocscszcs

you dont know how much topspin or sidespin the ball has to judge that, after seeing the trajectory before liu hits it you can tell that the spin is very light, and liu's push is directed into szcocs bh so if the ball was gripped correctly it would change direction. The ball just didnt grip correctly in the rubber and the contact point was too close to the handle

UpSideDownCarl · Nov 10, 2015

The interesting thing, and it has already been pointed out, the sidespin from the serve should pull the ball towards Szocs's FH side and on the shot in question the ball shoots mostly towards Sczocs's BH side. It goes more to the side than up although it does both. So it is also possible that Shiwen messed up on the contact by misjudging where the ball was rather than misreading spin or hitting a fingernail.

But I am really not sure what happened. I just know that the serve is not hidden and pretty clear and the side-top should not pull the ball in that direction.

Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

Striker_ · Nov 11, 2015

Looks like Szocs hit the ball during the upswing with a little sidespin to her left and not during the right swipe. LSW misread the spin to bounce on her (LSWs) left side and opened the bat to point it to the right side. The brushing on the receive by LSW made it pop even more because tack rubbers get higher throw when brushing. Thats what I think.

Dan · Nov 11, 2015

Great posts everyone, I've read them all. I really cannot make my mind up what actually happened here! Lost for words

Dragan Glas · Nov 11, 2015

Greetings,

Not to confuse things further but...

... it's also possible that the ball caught the rubber where the embossed words are - the ITTF and manufacturer's names. That - on top of the actual spin BS put on the ball - also might account for the "random" angle at which the ball left LSW's bat.

Just a thought!

Kindest regards,

James

Dan · Nov 11, 2015

Dragan Glas said:
Greetings,

Not to confuse things further but...

... it's also possible that the ball caught the rubber where the embossed words are - the ITTF and manufacturer's names. That - on top of the actual spin BS put on the ball - also might account for the "random" angle at which the ball left LSW's bat.

Just a thought!

Kindest regards,

James

Haha that's just what we need James!

Nice addition

TTFrenzy · Nov 11, 2015

Dragan Glas said:
Greetings,

Not to confuse things further but...

... it's also possible that the ball caught the rubber where the embossed words are - the ITTF and manufacturer's names. That - on top of the actual spin BS put on the ball - also might account for the "random" angle at which the ball left LSW's bat.

Just a thought!

Kindest regards,

James

Yeap this is maybe the most logical explanation, the trajectory of the ball and the direction of liu shiwen's paddle dont match, one should expect the ball to fly high over szocs extreme BH side

TTHopeful · Nov 21, 2015

TTFrenzy said:
Yeap this is maybe the most logical explanation, the trajectory of the ball and the direction of liu shiwen's paddle dont match, one should expect the ball to fly high over szocs extreme BH side

Someone ask Liu Shiwen this question please!

Cornel · Nov 21, 2015

Maybe this thread needs a poll?

Well, I also have an hypothesis. It is clear that anyway, LSW misread the spin, even if she touched the ball with her finger. Here is what happened in my opinion : Szocs made a serve with almost no spin. LSW confused, thought the serve will have backspin+sidespin so the ball would change its trajectory to the edge of the table. As a result the ball hits the racket in some kind of a dead zone(you can notice only a slight backspin after the ball hits the floor, so it seems that she didn't hit the ball with the thumb).

Did Liu Shiwen misread the spin?

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