Upcoming stars

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Who do you reckon will be the upcoming stars of table tennis? I love how Koki Niwa (Japan) plays, so consistent, however he needs more power. Also Yan An and Fang Bo (both from China) seem to be promising new players, especially Fang Bo who plays so much like Ma Long :D

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Yeah Tiago Apolonia has been playing great recently, but he needs a more aggressive backhand :p
 

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i didnt think fang bo and yan an have been doing very well recently correct me if im wrong
 
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Jung youg sik and Jeong Sang from Korea are simply great. Zhang Peifeng from China shall also shine in future.
 
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The Chinese Juniors have played so well in the World Junior Championships.
Wu (Wang Hao II) was good but there were better SH players. As a Ma Lin (and somewhat Wang Hao) fan, I feel :( .
There will be more SH lefties coming out of China.
:)
 
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Yeah, that was weird wasn't it? the fact that of the 4 people who represented China in the world junior table tennis championships, 3 of the 4 were all lefties....

Anyway, I don't think you have to worry about penhold disappearing. The Chinese National Team wants variety. They don't care which Chinese player wins as long as one of them does. Therefore their strategy, it to play into the competition players of different styles. If you happen to have an advantage against one style and beat that one player, they still have some security because the other player's style is completely different. Its part of the reason why during the WLQ and Ma Lin dominated era, one of them always reached the finals and won (the main reason of course is just that they are insanely good but...) The two of them had nearly polar opposite styles. One was about super quick speed and spin, and ending the point quickly, while the other was about power, and the longer the point lasted the greater the chance he would win.
Given this, the Chinese team will probably always want to have a penhold player on their national team, because most people just aren't used to playing them, penhold represents a total different style, because of its better service, better and therefore emphasis on the short game, and the Reverse backhand offers a ton of spin in flips.

I think in general penhold is harder to master, and therefore the Chinese team usually keeps their penhold players hidden away more, until they really reach an adequate level and then they are finally brought out into international play. I mean look at Xu Xin and Wang Hao. We basically didn't even hear about them and didn't know they existed until they finally arrived on the international scene in their first tournament. And both were 18 or maybe a little younger when brought out into the open.

So I don't think we should worry, some penholder we might not even know about will randomly appear out of no where and be good.
 
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Also, out of the players we do know, I think Fang Bo has potential, also Zhou Yu, and Lin Guoyuan. The latter two lost to Song Hongyuan, but watching their games, I think both of them have bigger upsides than Song. They playstyles have greater potential. Lin and Zhou's backhands are pretty insanely good. Especially considering that Lin is only 15. The last person who has shown as much poise and feel for the game at such a young age was in my opinion Ma Long. And we all know how he turned out.... haha
 

nxs

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Lin Guoyan seemed to have great potential and a great game in the WJTTC. Agreeing with scylla above here that even Song beat him, i think he has more potential.

Koki Niwa's an awesome talent but i think his lack of power will catch up with him soon enough.
 
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Koki Niwa will probably be the only one that can pit toe to toe with the chinese from Japan, assuming he either grows to Ma Long's height or have the physical strength of Ma Lin. Matsudaira's currently skill level is decent, but his potential is maxing out; his improvements are nothing compared to the chinese players'.

Fang Bo is already on the first tier team of China, I don't know about Yan An, though. Wu Jiaduo will definitely be a star in the future, to keep the RPB legacy that Wang Hao started.

Paul Drinkhall is promising, but England's TT support is little, and DH's skill level can only rise if he makes his own breakthroughs. In that case, Ovtcharov has a better chance at competing with the Chinese, as the German coaches and players are just downright better.

I would love to see a lefty Ma Lin though. Xu Xin doesn't really count because he is just so tall! I need a short lefty penholder to learn from.

In other news, if Joo Se Hyuk's son plays TT in the future, I can see Korea being number one in more than one occasion.
 
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Of the young european players, the one that I think has the best chance to make it to the top level and become the next Boll is that Alexander Shibaev he is the only one who I see has the potential to become an elite player. His looping from both sides is really good, and he gets a lot more spin on them than most European players. Plus he has the body advantages of being taller than the average player and not being that much slower despite the greater height, has longer arms, thus more reach and leverage etc. If he continues improving, he will be hard to beat. He had a decent game against Ma Lin a while back, lost to Octarchov in the European Stars tournament, despite having a way better loop, and the last match I saw of him, he crushed Schlager. So I definitely think if he continues to improve and get tip top training, he has the potential to be on par with the Chinese.
 
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Just to speak about French young players :
- Alexandre Cassin (which won during the last 2 weeks the Hungarian Open and the Czech Open in Cadet, despite he is only 12 years old)
- Alexandre Robinot (Quentin's brother) & Andrea Landrieux ( -15 World Ranking = 13th, first european) in Cadet
- Quentin Robinot, Simon Gauzy & Romain Lorentz (respectively 9th, 10th and 13th in the -18 World Ranking, they have won almost everything in junior competitions in Europe last year)

and of course Adrien Mattenet, who is now, at 23, accessing the 30th position in the World Ranking, having gained almost 60 positions in less that one year.

It seems that we (frenchies) are recovering from two empty decades : we had no new talentuous players but Gatien / Chila / Eloi / Legout (who are all up to 40 years old now), until this new generation.
 
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Alexander Shibaev, won the under 18 in Qatar, beating Niwa Koki, and in the UAE, he just lost 4-3 to Mizutani. I think that's pretty significant. He has already shown the ability, to bring Octarchov and Mizutani to 7 games, both of whom are really good, and Mizutani especially has a better chance to beating the Chinese than anyone other than Boll.

There also seems to be a lot of under 21 Korean players that have appeared in the past year or two, who I don't really know that well, but they consistently do pretty decent. They probably have the potentially of becoming really good. In the Under 21 ranking, 3,4,5,6 are all Korean players. So they definitely have a lot of potential to improve, since they can play against each other everyday, and when you have high quality people to play against and practice against you have a better chance to improve.
 
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In other news, if Joo Se Hyuk's son plays TT in the future, I can see Korea being number one in more than one occasion.

What makes you think if you are the son of a good player that you will become a good player yourself? Talent is something you just have, its not something you pass on to your kids.


And I agree with scylla that shibaev will become a great player, not sure if he will beat the chinese but he will get pretty good.
 
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