Funny Ma Lin!

[Dan]

Ma Lin makes fun of Ryu Seung Min, while Timo also has a strange conversation! If there are any Chinese speakers out there, please translate for us as we would love to know what they are saying :)

The video was taken from behind the scenes at the shakehand vs penhold match with the shakehand team discussing their team slogan!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79TUWRS_3-s

This amazing tournament took place as Chinese Head team coach Liu Guoliang said wanted to break the controversy that the sport with penhold players were better then shakehand players.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20110622/0013729ece6b0f6bdde50d.jpg

The two rival teams consisted of two playing styles. The penhold team was Olympic champions Ma Lin and Ryu Seung Min and Chinese Wang Hao. The shakehand team consisted of Ma Long, Zhang Jike and Germany's Timo Boll.

It was a very close tournament with a sudden death match at the end where Ma Long jsut beat Ryu Seung Min 12-10 in the fifth set.

The penhold team below

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20110622/0013729ece6b0f6bde310e.jpg
All photos by CFP

So TTD members who knows whats going on here? Can anyone translate this for us?

[UpSideDownCarl]

It is fun to see them having fun in front of the cameras.

I think both Shakehand and Penhold have their advantages. For Penhold I think serves, short game and that big powerful forehand loop are obvious advantages. With the reverse penhold backhand there are fewer weaknesses to the backhand side but it does not seem as if anybody but Wang Hao uses the reverse penhold backhand as their primary backhand. Also Penhold players often seem to have better footwork because of their need to cover more of the table with the forehand.

Shakehand is more consistent and more versatile because you can loop from both sides. And just like the top penhold players seem to find ways of nullifying the possible weaknesses of the penhold grip, the top shakehand players have learned how to serve and do short touch stuff with the shakehand grip at the same basic level as the pehhold players.

But with Penhold you can use a LOT more wrist in the forehand loop which really makes looping underspin much easier.

However, right now, if you look in the top 10, there are only 3 penhold players: #1 (Wang Hao), #3 (Ma Lin) and #9 (Xu Xin). In the top 20 there are only for: add to the list #13 (Ryu Seung Min).

[WiWa]

Big advantage of penhold as well is that u don't have as much problems when someone plays at ur elbow. The whole table block is with the 'FH'. U don't need to really switch from FH to BH to block.