Ask Jan Ove waldner a question on the TTD podcast!

Is there any chance of him coming to England in the near to give some exhibition matches ?

How does one train to achieve a good balance of consistency and power? And what is a good balance of consistency and power? (Eg. 60% 40%)

OMG! I can't believe you guys got Waldner on the Podcast.

My questions would be:

1. What were your tactics against Liu Guoliang in the 2000 WTTC and against Ma Lin in the Olympics in 2004? What strategies and techniques did you use to beat them?

2. What did you change in your gameplan to beat Samsonov 3:0 in the 1997 WTTC just one week after he had beaten you 3:0 in the team event.

3. Do you use max thickness on both forehand and backhand or do you prefer a thinner sponge on the backhand?

My first question is kind of a variation on anchorschmidts first one. Slightly different, but this question is something that has intrigued me for a long time.

1. You lost your first 5 matches to Liu Guoliang, but won the last 4. We see the same pattern between Jörgen Persson and Liu. What makes me curious is that the two of you started to beat him at the same time and never lost to him again. Did you figure out how to beat Liu together and if so, what were the actual tactical changes you employed to do that?
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2. When did you yourself realise that you were something out of the ordinary as a player?
   How did you handle that?
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3. Who was your table tennis hero when you were young?
   Why was that?
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4. Which moments in your career are you most proud of?
   Which ones hurt the most?
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5. What were your dreams as a kid growing up?
   What are your dreams now, when your active table tennis career is over?
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6. What's - in your view - your greatest contribution to table tennis?
   What do you think people will remember you for (in terms of table tennis)?
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7. What's the strangest thing that ever happened to you whilst playing?
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8. Your days as a full time professional player are over now after a glorious career. So what does your table tennis future look like? Will you take on full time coaching, act as an ambassador for the sport or do you see yourself taking up a position within the ITTF in the future? Or will you focus solely on your business interests in China? (Basically the same Q as for Persson, but still interesting IMHO)

Q: I read you might want to become comentator, but what about coaching young and Pro athletes?

TableTennisDaily said:

Hi everyone,

One of our upcoming guests on the TableTennisDaily Podcast is Swedish Legend Jan Ove Waldner! Jan Ove Waldner is regarded by many as the greatest table tennis player of all time. Waldner is an Olympic Gold Medalist, World Champion, European Champion and much more! Jan Ove has done it all! The GOAT of Table Tennis!

Simply submit your question below! We will take the best questions and use them in the podcast!

Jan Ove Waldner - Olympic Gold in 1992 Barcelona (photo by: jo-waldner.com)

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What is your opinion on the plastic balls do you prefer celluloid or plastic?

What do you think about the advantage Chinese players have with their equipment?

I know its difficult to be objective about those matches but I think Ma lin and Timo Boll in olympics 2004 got surprised by your unpredictable tactics in the opening sets and then got really afraid of you and made some really stupid mistakes. Do you thing they choked? cause it seemed like they did

In a past interview you stated the Europeans should stop trying to copy the chinese and be more creative, cause that is the way to beat them. What advice would you give to anton kallberg for example who showed that he does not afraid the chinese at all and just goes for it? Ovtcharov in top form also showed that he can pose a really big threat, but after his 2014 win over ZJK his results seem to be declining against them. What would you do if u were dima;s coach?

*If you look back when you played to 21 points using Voc glue and the 38mm ball and compare that with today 11 points no glue or boosting and the new plastic ball. In your opinion have the changes been positive or negative for TT?

*If you could pick one player that you enjoyed playing against the most that is not Swedish who would that be and why?

*Anyone that you rly disliked playing against and why?

*Is there a game that you lost that you look back to and think you should have won if only?

Did any of your opponents get angry with you after one of your tricks? Did that affected you?

OOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!! the big one is here!!

1)- Who is your favorite player of this days?

2)- Do you see any non chinese player that can really get between the chinese players in 2016 Olympic games?

Thanks a lot TTD for getting Waldner to the podcast!

1. How about working for ITTF - the person like you with so much respect from other players should easily make changes.
2. Is there a Chance there will be JOW statue in Sweden? Ai fukuhara already have it in Tokyo.
3. There were many questions about tactics. Most people Wonder if your victories were taken because of your natural talent or tactics. So how about coaching other players, did you think about it?

If waldner was in charge of the ITTF what changes would he make to enhance the sport?

would you say your backhand is defective compared to the backhand used today where every shot looks like a loop?
or is it just because you are a blocker and have a more passive game?

kukamonga said:

would you say your backhand is defective compared to the backhand used today where every shot looks like a loop?
or is it just because you are a blocker and have a more passive game?

Click to expand...

I'm not Waldner but I've thought about this quite a bit and would love to share my thoughts.

IMO, Waldner's backhand was not really a weakness but a strength. Once the backhand is attacked, players normally back off the table (most players) or they are not able to resist the pressure to their backhands (Ma Long till 2015) or they have to turn around which leaves a side open (which you can see in Timo Boll's matches against ZJK in 2011 or against Ma Long in the 2013 WTTC).

Waldner was able to resist a high amount of pressure to his backhand side without leaving his forehand side open or backing off the table. This made it very difficult for players to decide where to attack. Tactically it was a great strategy. Especially in lower levels you can see great backhands but only from the half-distance as they would crumble close to the table. Boll also started out with having a great backhand from the half-distance but it would consistently fail him when the Chinese would pressure his backhand. In recent years it has gotten much better from close to the table (see his match against ZJK in 2011 and compare it to his match against ZJK in 2014 where he doesn't run around his backhand side).

The only problem was that he would have to run around to kill low quality shots to his backhand side. In the 2004 Olympics, Waldner had really worked on his backhand so that it was effective against incoming balls of high quality or against loose balls as this could compensate for his slowness. The technique was still not the modern backhand technique but it was improved.

In an interview in 2011, which you can find in four parts online he said that it wasn't easy for him to play against strong backhand players playing a calm game because they would just rally backhand to backhand. Waldner couldn't get them to step around and couldn't use a shot with average speed and spin against them. In important tournaments Waldner would play much more aggressively and turn around fast and play a forehand down the line or to the middle.

Kong Linghui actually beat Waldner in the finals of the 2000 Olympics by attacking his wide forehand side after doing a backhand serve with reverse sidespin. The backhand was too safe.

All in all, I believe that Waldner's backhand was perhaps more effective than most modern backhands currently because he could withstand pressure and not lose a tactical upperhand. Currently I think that only ZJK, Ma Long (recently), Fan Zhendong, Samsonov, Timo Boll and CCY have effective close to the table backhands while also having a more powerful backhand loop than Waldner

Describe what you feel are the strengths and weaknesses of today's top players.

In 2009 and 2011 you had exhibition matches with Ma Long. In those matches, it looked like you tactically exposed some of his weaknesses even though the younger player eventually prevailed. What advice would you give to some of the up and coming players to help them perform better vs the top 4 players?


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If he had to condense the most necessary and basic skills to master for the novice/intermediate level player into a few bullet points(something along the lines of Pareto's Principle), what would they be?

What kind of mental preparation did he use before a big match? Did he work with a sports psychologist?

Did he have a routine during the pre-match warm-up on the table to get all his strokes firing?

Who was his favourite and worst opponent?

What do the other countries have to do to take on China? His views on this topic would be great!

Thanks

Everybody knows that you have the best eye for the game in the world. Most people are telling that it's something what you got or you don't. Is there anyway an advice what can give for reading the game and exposing the weakness of your opponent.

In your interviews in the past , you had expressed a wish that you could become a coach , especially coaching during matches. Now with your dear friend coaching Obtcharov , are we going to see you in the side lines any time soon for any of the European top players ? Looking forward in specific to your increased involvement in making the rest of the world compete with the Chinese and making Table tennis more interesting in general.