The Ma Lin mishap doesn't really apply here. Liam is actually at Samsonov's skill level. He really shouldn't be in the top 10 because his skill has decreased dramatically. He only stays in the top 10 because of his ability to play at lower ranking tournaments and beat players that are in 10-50 WR. He like Oh Sang Eun are just playing the older style and are being beaten by the younger players with the more modern style of play.
Kishikawa was definitely under ranked for that match and Ma hadn't fully developed his technique. He at the time was said to be ignoring his coaches because he was winning a lot as Wang Liqin was doing in 2005-2008.
Back to Ma Lin, that was a serious case of mentality for him. He was supposedly conserving his energy for his larger matches and wasn't focusing on that match as he should have been. He was overconfident and playing really passively for the first 2 games and it wasn't until he was down 0-2 that he put more effort into that match, but by then he'd already psyched himself out.
In the match with Liam, Samsonov is clearly a slower player and can't handle the speed that Liam is playing with. Their strokes are so clearly different, Liam with a much faster loop and Samsonov with his classic forehand that is just no longer effective in this sport. He's a great player and I don't want to put him down, but he's from an older era and just can't keep up unless he changes how he trains.
My point here was basically to stop "ranking" players based on their World Ranking. The World Ranking is very skewed to players who play more tournaments. If you play less tournaments and maintain a good Win to Loss ratio your rating will always go up. If you are in the Top 10 and winning a lot your rating will also go up, but it is not until you play several tournaments and lose to many low rated players that you start to drastically drop.
I base my "World Ranking" on skill level. I basically take the statistics of who can beat who and who has the better technique and tactical advantage and rate them as such. Ma Long, Zhang Jike, and Wang Hao would definitely be at the top of the list, but to rank who's #1 I'd give it to who's winning most recently and rightfully so Ma Long is at the top.
Ma Lin in my opinion is better in skill than Timo and should also be ranked higher than him. The rest of the top 20 need to be reset because many of them rarely play and because they do the bare minimum to stay qualified and they win lower ranked tournaments they stay at their current World Ranking. There are probably 2-3 players in the top 10 who shouldn't be based in skill and there are definitely at least 5-6 players in the top 20 who should be fighting for those spots in the top 10. Many of the Chinese players are clearly skilled higher than their ranking, but haven't played for a very long time. And there are a lot of older players who play every once in a while and win some unknown events to gain their points in the rankings.
Honestly I wish there was an International League that affected these rankings because they would fluctuate properly and give a better statistical analysis of who's better than who.
