Does Tomasz's serve look illegal? He seems to hide his serve with his arm. It might be the reason you had trouble returning his serves.
I don't think it was hiding the ball much from the receiver's view and it looked like arm was up for balance, even if it should be removed much more. To be fair, Decoy's arm was left up on serve (but much higher) in a similar fashion. I don't think this bothered either player much.
Decoy looked like he had next to zero explosion on his shots. He appeared to lack the energy to get the knees bent, waist down and twist enough to generate the killer blade acceleration. There are times where you use reduced power, but you still get down to get the control. Obviously, Decoy on that night didn't have it and there was prolly a very good reason for it - accumulated excessive demands on his body. Happens to ALL of us TT warriors who like to go all out all day. NONE of us can maintain top form all day playing like that, you degrade after a certain time. Even when we do this, we do not feel it so much, yet if you watch video, it is obvious.