Ma Long at his peak will be scary!

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Dan and me were talking about the young generation of top players and something came to my mind..Ma Long hasn't reached his peak yet and he already is the best player of the world, imagine him in 2 years, if he keeps improving, he'll be unstoppable!
What are your thoughts on this, do you think he can still improve and which players can stop him in your opinion?

Discuss!
 
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I think he can improve some, but that improvement will probably be more in more mental areas and varying up his play. His game in my opinion is kind of one dimensional.... its just that he is sooooooo good at that one dimension that he beats just about everyone. I think he should really work towards varying up his game more, instead of just immediately entering into a fast loop attack on everything to the wings, yes its hard to play against, but its a style that requires a lot of exertion and speed, that he won't always be able to keep up with once he gets a little older. Plus I feel like it it has weaknesses against blocking players who if they block it back, Ma Long will have trouble reacting and hitting it back. His match against Chan Kizuhiro, the Chinese guy who plays for the Japanese team I think showed that. Yes I realize Ma Long was just getting back from an injury and wasn't close to 100%, but still nevertheless it did show a kind of weakness in his game. It's also why in the Asian games that are going on right now, Kenta did a lot better than people expected against Ma Long, even though Kenta still loses pretty badly to some other players who aren't nearly as good as Ma Long.

So yeah, anyway I think Ma Long's improvement will probably be more in short game, and areas not related to speed, because frankly he is so fast, and pushes the pace of his game to a level that it's hard to imagine any more real gains in that area.... humans can react only so fast....
 
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Why you think he will continue to improve?
 
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Great post scylla24, you could be right about the mental part.
And Baal, almost no sportsman has reached his peak with 21!
 
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Yeah,

I mean in table tennis and with most other sports, you reach your peak probably around 26-29.

I mean Wang Liqin reached a period in like 2003-2006 when he was and Ma Lin reached the final of every tournament they participated in, with Wang Liqin winning them all.

So yeah, unless Ma Long injuries himself really badly, or just gets tired of winning, which I doubt it since Chinese players are always zoned in, he should definitely get better.

And going back to my first post, I would really like to see him work on his short game. Most of serves are long, which basically forces his opponent to skip the short game and go into the long game, but when his opponent reacts well to the long serve, its causes potential trouble. From just a general standpoint its better to start with the shortgame and control it enough so that you are the first one to get a chance to attack. I just watched the finals of the Asian games between Wang Hao and Ma Long, and the main reason Wang Hao stayed in the game was because his short game was just a lot better in general than Ma Longs. Part of it is that penhold just has an advantage when it comes to the short game, but I think Ma Long still could work a lot on that area, that way he can always assure that he is the first to unleash his devastating attack.
 
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I think for Chinese players at this level of play, the bigger improvement will come mainly from how they deal with pressure when it comes to crucial points in big tournaments. We have seen how the young female players crumbled in the final vs Singapore at this year's WTTC in Moscow and even Ma Long lost his match to Timo Boll in the team final in the same tournament. Of course, the Chinese men's team is still too invincible to have any upset result. As to who would give him trouble, I guess at this rate, Zhang Jike is the obvious one.
 
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I dont think Zhang Jike is the one who can stop Ma Long.. Zhang said that Ma Long is his bogey oppenent and I dont think table tennis players reach their peak with 26-29 it's more like 23-25 watch at Timo Boll, Wang Liqin and Wang Hao.
And why should Ma Long change his playing style? Would you change your playing style if you win almost everything ? I dont think so :D I think european pro players prefer Ma Long because he has no secrets in his playing style as against Ma Lin but Ma Long still win
And yes, Ma loses sometimes but every player lose sometimes but in today's society everyone scream if the N°.1 in the world lose a single match
I remember a thread on a german forum with the topic The Downfall of Wang Hao
and now the funny thing of this senseless topic at that time Wang Hao was N.1 in the World!

My conclusion: In my opinion Ma Long will dominate for the next 3-4 years but he will lose some matches thats human dudes ;)
Or another chinese player will make a huge jump and can stop Ma Long ;)
For me it is not so important to be N.1 in the world ,, more important is to play on a high level constantly Boll never plays constantly -->the reason why he didnt win a wttc or Olympics and he will not win
 

Dan

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Dan

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yeah yeah they sure are tough now but I am sick of watching them dominating ping pong, where is next young Waldner at ?

Haha true peter!!

And I think Ma Long, a good point... his game needs so much speed ect he may not be able to cope with this as he ages. However your body is at its optimum peak between the years of 23 - 27. So i think he will get stronger with his looping!

I think the next contender could be Xu Xin to be number 1 if it was anyone. This is because his game is very versatile.. he has fantastic defence with incredible attack.

@scylla24 - Nice points about him playing against blockers. I think this is the only style he struggles against.. so its not to much of a problem... only kenta, mizutani, Chen and a few others play like that. As long as he keeps beating the attackers he will stay number 1 even if he has a few losses to blockers :)
 
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There is a old saying in Chinese Martial Art: All the Kongfu in the world, only the fast is invincible. That is Ma long
 

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i think hes serve could improove a bit and the short game but hes game is 90% there all he needs now is experiance
 
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His future development depends on how well he can handle the pressure which is put on every number 1 !
 
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@ Bollforte, I am not saying he should change his game, but I am saying he should work on a particular aspect of the game that is lacking. Ideally you want to reach a level that your game really has no weaknesses. Look at Boll, he is really good at playing most styles, but for most of his career, despite him wooping most non Chinese players, he has always done bad against Oh Seung Unh, and the reason is because his playstyle with a ton of top spin fits perfectly against Oh's playstyle. Ma Long's style atm beats 95 percent of the people out there, for those 95%, by all means he should continue to play like he does, but for those 5 percent whose playstyle is comfortable with the all out super fast looping, he needs to develop an aspect of his game to beat those people as easily as he beats everyone else, and atm that aspect is lacking in my opinion.

As for Zhang Jike beating Ma Long, I actually think thats a very good possibility, a lot of Chinese coaches actually see more potential in Zhang's game than Ma Long, it has more variety, he gets more spin in his short game shots that he uses to transition the point from backspin to topspin, and I think generally he has a little better short game than Ma Long, with a 2 years of development he could very well be better than Ma Long.

@Dan, yeah but the problem is Kenta and Mizutani probably represent the biggest threat to Chinese dominance. The Chinese team doesn't care which Chinese player wins, as long as he is Chinese. Therefore it doesn't mean anything if Ma Long can beat most players, and all his fellow Chinese players, if he matches badly to the two biggest threats to the Chinese team.... Its the same reason why Hao Shua is forever a class B player in the Chinese national team's view. He does insanely well in the Chinese Superleague, better even than Ma Lin and others, but where as Ma Lin beats just about all non-Chinese players, Hao Shua loses to several of them.
 
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The thing that will stop Ma Long from dominating in two words:

Wang Hao. Still defending two-time world men's singles champion, pretty much unbeatable when he is healthy and motivated. He looked like his old self at the last tournament. And not over the hill.
 
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The thing that will stop Ma Long from dominating in two words:

Wang Hao. Still defending two-time world men's singles champion, pretty much unbeatable when he is healthy and motivated. He looked like his old self at the last tournament. And not over the hill.

+1 Wang Hao has been Ma Long's biggest obstacle, especially as of lately. With that said, I was a bit happy when Ma beat Wang in the finals of the Asian Games xD

As of right now, it's likely that the next "Top 3" of the CNT will be Ma Long, Zhang Jike, and Xu Xin. Wang Hao is still in that "middle zone" that separates the youngsters with the "old guys" i.e. Ma Lin, Wang Liqin, and all of the other guys like Chen Qi/Hao Shuai. Wang Hao still has a few more years of glory, I think. His last stand will probably be 2012 Olympics, if Ma Long hasn't already dominated by then. :D I can't wait for next year's 2011 WTTC. I'm looking forward to the Ma Long overkill!
 
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Oops. Right. Only one. :eek:
 
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And arguing further against my post is the fact that Ma Long won fairly easily their most recent match at the Asian Games. I still have a feeling Wang Hao will win the worlds this year.
 
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You mean next year :)
Yeah, Wang Hao at his best is just a joy to watch, if Boll doesn't make it, I'm gonna root for Wang Hao!
 
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