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    Ma Long Reflects On Losing First Match In 5 Years!

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    TableTennisDaily
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    On the 14th April the round of 32 at the Asian Championships took place with one notable result in particular which went down as the biggest upset in 2017. The World Number 1, World Champion and Rio Olympic Champion Ma Long lost to Korea's Jeong Sangeun (9-11, 8-11, 11-6, 6-11). This is the first time in 5 years Ma Long has lost to a player outside of CHINA! In fact its been a total of 1659 days and 136 wins since Ma Long lost to a non Chinese player.


    Ma Long records first loss in 5 years!


    MA LONG POST MATCH INTERVIEW:

    In a post match interview Ma Long was not happy with the plastic ball being used and expressed, "I did not win the first set when I was leading. The match is best of 5 sets. I did not play well when I was trailing 0:1. The change to the new Nittaku plastic ball also affected my performance more or less, causing more unforced errors throughout."

    "I had a good start of 3-0 at the beginning of the fourth set. Then the umpire called a fault service, which was ridiculous. I was affected somewhat. Although I told myself 'Don't be affected by it', I did run into some trouble delivering my techniques and tactics of services. Also I had too many unforced errors. "

    "I did pay attention to my opponent. He is of good level in Team Korea. I was fully prepared before the match. But I made too many errors during the match and gave him too many chances. I was not able to stop his momentum most of the time, which made him more comfortable."




    FOOTAGE OF THE MATCH:

    Ma Long vs Jeong Sangeun


    Match provided by the ITTF

    What do you think of Ma Long's loss? Just a bad day in the office?

    Stay tuned on TTD for all the updates from the exciting Asian Championships for the line up, draws, seeds and more. Plus keep up to the date with all the latest videos in the TTD Video Library.

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    Comments 18 Comments
    1. Sali's Avatar
      Sali - 04-17-2017
      Better to say "I had a bad day" then fault nittaku ball. As I understand both players had the same ball so both of tchem could have troubles adapting to it.
    1. MaLongFamily Fans Club's Avatar
      MaLongFamily Fans Club - 04-17-2017
      Full match of Ma Long against Jeong Sangeun recorded by @小汤圆和小橘子 (Sina Weibo). Please bear with the shaky hands.
    1. Baal's Avatar
      Baal - 04-16-2017
      The guy is human after all.
    1. Zaid323918's Avatar
      Zaid323918 - 04-16-2017
      why didn't Ma just toss the ball into the referee's face? That is definitely at least 6 inches.
    1. Gourav Acharya's Avatar
      Gourav Acharya - 04-16-2017
      Quote Originally Posted by NextLevel View Post
      I watched the "fault" call and it is another good example of why the idea of 6 inches between the ball and the hand is proof of a 6 inch toss is nonsense.
      6 inch rule is not shit. The ref was shit. I kept seeing the serve again and again, and it was definitely above six inches.Bad decision by ref. Completely frustrated ma long. He then kept tossing the ball higher and couldn't perform good serves.

      Sent from my Redmi 3S using Tapatalk
    1. TTFrenzy's Avatar
      TTFrenzy - 04-15-2017
      ma long always in mental trouble when the opponent takes the first set and plays solidly . Its not the first time the young korean has faced him in their previous encounter 6 years go ML narrowly escaped 4-3, jeong sangeun or whatever his name is commented that ML style suits him very well and he is very comfortable facing him.

      As for the serve, I hope we wont see anything like that anymore especially in world events since it affects the game on certain occasions. The rule is stupid, even if it is applied strictly, hypothetically speaking because some referees do understand that they spoil matchplay, tossing the ball always vertical takes away from players specific types of serves like the reverse pendulum and the punch which require the ball to be close to your belly to achieve maximum spin and deception
    1. NextLevel's Avatar
      NextLevel - 04-15-2017
      I watched the "fault" call and it is another good example of why the idea of 6 inches between the ball and the hand is proof of a 6 inch toss is nonsense.
    1. Tony's Table Tennis's Avatar
      Tony's Table Tennis - 04-15-2017
      Quote Originally Posted by Baal View Post
      yes, that is stupid. Matches should be longer, not shorter. Otherwise we might as well be playing darts.
      Tell that to the people who change 21 to 11 lol
      on mytt years ago, I said, I'm waiting to see what the new point system would be, i'm guess 7 lol
      and maybe best out of 5
    1. Baal's Avatar
      Baal - 04-15-2017
      Quote Originally Posted by vik View Post
      Why is champonship best of 5?
      yes, that is stupid. Matches should be longer, not shorter. Otherwise we might as well be playing darts.
    1. vik's Avatar
      vik - 04-15-2017
      Why is champonship best of 5?
    1. NextLevel's Avatar
      NextLevel - 04-15-2017
      Quote Originally Posted by laistrogian View Post
      Yes but what I'm talking about right now is their normal 40+ balls that are being used in most ITTF tournaments. For me it's just a real big bullshit how DHS probably pressured CNT to complain about the nittaku balls they're using for asian championship.

      Also, if you watched the video TTD made where Dan interviewed the CNT players, all of them "prefer" plastic balls when probably all european players are complaining about it
      I agree. What I mean is that some amateurs actually prefer those crappy balls as well and complain about the lack of spin on ABS balls. For me, consistency is far more important than spin.
    1. laistrogian's Avatar
      laistrogian - 04-15-2017
      Quote Originally Posted by NextLevel View Post
      You would be surprised. You would be surprised....


      Yo be fair to DHS, their D40+ ball is similar to Nittaku and is excellent.
      Yes but what I'm talking about right now is their normal 40+ balls that are being used in most ITTF tournaments. For me it's just a real big bullshit how DHS probably pressured CNT to complain about the nittaku balls they're using for asian championship.

      Also, if you watched the video TTD made where Dan interviewed the CNT players, all of them "prefer" plastic balls when probably all european players are complaining about it
    1. NextLevel's Avatar
      NextLevel - 04-15-2017
      Quote Originally Posted by laistrogian View Post
      He probably did it to do some more promotion for the DHS. I was surprised that nittaku is the ball used for a tournament in china.

      He's not going to affect any opinion of the players though, almost every player knows DHS balls are shit
      You would be surprised. You would be surprised....


      Yo be fair to DHS, their D40+ ball is similar to Nittaku and is excellent.
    1. laistrogian's Avatar
      laistrogian - 04-15-2017
      He probably did it to do some more promotion for the DHS. I was surprised that nittaku is the ball used for a tournament in china.

      He's not going to affect any opinion of the players though, almost every player knows DHS balls are shit
    1. pepinho's Avatar
      pepinho - 04-15-2017
      The Nittaku 40+ balls are better than others. How many broken balls did you see in the matches? I did not see any. So?
    1. Takkyu_wa_inochi's Avatar
      Takkyu_wa_inochi - 04-15-2017
      why play with DHS ? every amateur in Japan play with Nittaku LOL
    1. CroneOne's Avatar
      CroneOne - 04-15-2017
      What the? What was the change in the Nittaku ball? Why change something that works?
    1. Takkyu_wa_inochi's Avatar
      Takkyu_wa_inochi - 04-15-2017
      Of course the Korean player played very well, and is making his best tournament in many years, but I feel MA Long played made very unusual mistakes. Also best of 5, and a new ball, thats changing things a little bit, and putting some extra pressure as the margin for error is much less. He just proved he is a human and not a total robot.

      On the other hand, the performance of HIRANO is on a totally different level because DING was playing her at her usual level.
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