P Ball killed the PH star

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I'm really... sad for Xu Xin. And I'm wondering how he'll be able to come back at a decent top 10 level. Since 2016 he has won... nothing, and it's really upsetting me. Yeah I love this guy I must say, I'm a true fan of him !

The P Ball is killing the loopers, therefore it's killing the chinese reverse backhand penholders. And that's definitely not good news for diversity in table tennis. How much PH players are still there in the top 50 now ? How much of them will we able to see in the next Olympics ?

Seing short pips agressive closed to the table players so strong like Mima Ito or Matias Falck isn't good news too, it's only showing us that it's all about power now, to me it's a levelling down process: get out magicians, get out rotations unless you can master the über tacky chinese rubbers.

It's gone too far with that stupid Claudia Herweg.

 
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You are at least five years late.
the first CA plastic ball was still spinny by itself, then the Abs Ball killed the slow spinny game in 2016. Players were however still struggling with control, so loopers had more consistency back then. Now everyone has adapted and the game has become a speed and power game with less variety.
Anyways, for us amateur players control is still the most important factor, so spin is still relevant. One advantage though is that the rough abs ball has much more friction on the table, so spin kicks harder and makes the ball more deceptive. Examples, see the emergence of the 'snake' or hou yingchao's recent success. Xu xin sucks now since the control advantage he had became less and less as players adapted to the ball. With his equipment change he also wants to play the bang bang game like all the other players, yet this will require substantial adaptation time, which he doesn't have with the olympics upcoming. In short, WTF is he doing? he should stick to his old setup and win mixed doubles where he doesn't need the short strokes and quick recovery as much.
 
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Still about control. Watched Timo Bolls analysis of a game beteween Harimoto och Lee Sang Soo. Basically the only thing he said was that Lee Sang Soo missed to many easy points and that it was no idea to watch more than one set because all the others were the same. He thought Harimoto playes a control based game.
 
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Just want to address the point where you say that Xu Xin hasn't won anything since 2016. I haven't got the full list to hand but a quick Wiki search shows that he's won 4 gold medals at the World's since 2016. So he's definitely won stuff.
 
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Just want to address the point where you say that Xu Xin hasn't won anything since 2016. I haven't got the full list to hand but a quick Wiki search shows that he's won 4 gold medals at the World's since 2016. So he's definitely won stuff.
In single men tournaments, only the German Open. The rest is mixed doubles, men's doubles, men's team events, easy for him with the CNT, playing double and team tournaments is physically less demanding. Falck crushed him severely in Macao lately, he's also lost several players over the top 10 ranking, like Pitchford or specially Gauzy in 2019 @ the WTTC Budapest, R32 match... that's a bit early in a major tournament.

I stand my words, his last year ranking was only the tree that hides the forest. His desire to play more closed to the table is reflective of his worries. Timo Boll himself is also changing his game style to be more closed to the table and finish the point early, being spinny is useless, Harimoto shows that it's easier to control the game with a ball that has less rotations: his BH are active blocks and flat hits most of the time. He doesn't care for spin, because it's useless with that shitty P Ball, it's a waste of time and energy.
 
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