German Open 2017

[NextLevel]

I think it is hard to compare CNT women's and men's team directly. First of all, CNT women's team is more dominant than men's team. Only JNT gives CNT some threats, and not to top players except Miu Hirano during Asian Championships. If I remember correctly, DN was complaining loudly in live streaming during timeout that the Nittaku ABS ball did not spin. Wu Yang complained about DHS 40+ too. From the complaints of male players, the effects on reduced spin can be compensated with more power or faster speed. Many female players are lightning fast and the new ball is not "against" them. For male players, Tomo and LGY are good examples. LGY performs way much better this year than before, he beat ML, XX, FZD in trials or China National Games, and beat some great non-CNT players internationally (he did beat Timo Boll once in Japan Open). He is not a top CNT player with relatively poor FH topspin; but the new ball is not "against" his game.

I would like to comment on something - it is common to say that the new ball does not spin. I find this to be absolutely untrue. What I think people are trying to say is that the new ball, when you play spinny shots, doesn't seem to bother the other player as much as it did with the older balls. This is true, but I find that the players who still put a lot of spin on the ball can still get the ball to do things that cause problems. But it is not as easy to get the ball to do this as before. No one really knows how much the ball is spinning, so whenever I hear these spin comments, I shake my head.

 

[WorkerBee]

what I meant is that his appearance ultimately brought nothing new because Timo had already been an example for quite some time. Chinese love powerful loop exchanges so if you want to beat them - better play like Timo, deny them their game. Problem was always lying in how hard it is to take the ball early off a quality shot. In regular tennis Federer is a good example of how early timing can give you massive advantage but almost no one has the technical ability to abuse that tactic.

I also did not say Tomo brought anything new. In fact as people are learning and adjusting to his style, Tomo will have to turn to another famous player to stay near the top, none other than J.O.Waldner, who has given us his amazing block attacks whereby he did not immediately counter attack but first set it up with extraordinarily placed blocks and THEN counter-attacking. This will be a big mindset change for Tomo because he is so trained to simply attack. I think he can learn it because he does so well with drop shots and soft short hits. But nonetheless, his current style is changing how the top players have to play. Even Timo learned that at the Czech Open where he lost to Tomo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=256&v=9Xv5hOR-9So

 

[NextLevel]

RTK, If you saw what commentary ITTF had 5-6 years ago before they got AB to announce full time, you would have really known what lack of insight and all the other negative things you mentioned truly were for ITTF announcing. AB runs circles around the ones before him, yes, he shifts the balance of insight to entertainment more towards entertainment. TT is an entertainment business, not a research library with unattractive prim librarians.

ITTF ran a competition to find and hire their "new" announcer. Provide us some live commentary you make on a live match next time. You don't have a whole lot of time to provide long insight, usually under 10 seconds. Usually just 2-3 sentences if that.

To add to this, Adam Bobrow is about USATT 2100-2200 or about TTR 1700-1800. He is competent player who is commentating the game at the level he understands it which is quite high compared to the average tournament player. Maybe if you can find a player with TTR 2000 or USATT 2400 commentate, you can do better, but it is not going to be easy or often you find such guys and many of them don't flow well on camera. Matthew Syed and Richard Prause are the exception not the norm.

 

[RidTheKid]

Irrelevant how things were 5-6 years ago when AB is still a commentator for the broad masses more than those who are really passionate about the sport.

And I actually did join a contest here in Sweden for commentary of the FIFA World Cup 2006. I didn't win that time but I put the money where my mouth is, everytime.

RTK, If you saw what commentary ITTF had 5-6 years ago before they got AB to announce full time, you would have really known what lack of insight and all the other negative things you mentioned truly were for ITTF announcing. AB runs circles around the ones before him, yes, he shifts the balance of insight to entertainment more towards entertainment. TT is an entertainment business, not a research library with unattractive prim librarians.

ITTF ran a competition to find and hire their "new" announcer. Provide us some live commentary you make on a live match next time. You don't have a whole lot of time to provide long insight, usually under 10 seconds. Usually just 2-3 sentences if that.

 

[RidTheKid]

"Matthew Syed and Richard Prause are the exception not the norm."
And therein lies the problem.

To add to this, Adam Bobrow is about USATT 2100-2200 or about TTR 1700-1800. He is competent player who is commentating the game at the level he understands it which is quite high compared to the average tournament player. Maybe if you can find a player with TTR 2000 or USATT 2400 commentate, you can do better, but it is not going to be easy or often you find such guys and many of them don't flow well on camera. Matthew Syed and Richard Prause are the exception not the norm.

 

[rainneverever]

I would like to comment on something - it is common to say that the new ball does not spin. I find this to be absolutely untrue. What I think people are trying to say is that the new ball, when you play spinny shots, doesn't seem to bother the other player as much as it did with the older balls. This is true, but I find that the players who still put a lot of spin on the ball can still get the ball to do things that cause problems. But it is not as easy to get the ball to do this as before. No one really knows how much the ball is spinning, so whenever I hear these spin comments, I shake my head.

I know your points. The players are not physicists and apparently they judge from the trajectory of the ball flying - the trajectory of the new ball is different from the old one although they hit/spin the ball with the same power and same action.
Wang Hao said 20-25% more power are needed to spin the new ball to get the same effect of the old ball. They just need time to build up muscles and have new muscle memory.

 

[JesperStef]

RTK, If you saw what commentary ITTF had 5-6 years ago before they got AB to announce full time, you would have really known what lack of insight and all the other negative things you mentioned truly were for ITTF announcing. AB runs circles around the ones before him, yes, he shifts the balance of insight to entertainment more towards entertainment. TT is an entertainment business, not a research library with unattractive prim librarians.

ITTF ran a competition to find and hire their "new" announcer. Provide us some live commentary you make on a live match next time. You don't have a whole lot of time to provide long insight, usually under 10 seconds. Usually just 2-3 sentences if that.

Just to clarify my (slight) critique of Bobrow: You're right about him being almost unbelievably much better than the old commentators (Don and Jillian Parker and Ian Marshall, I think?). And he does "know" table tennis - not to the degree of pro players and coaches - but enough to be able to do a good job. I just feel that he would be even better working together with guest expert commentators, that's all.

To be fair, Gavin Rumgay is good too. I just wish that he'd go more in detail about analyzing the play/game as well.

 

[rainneverever]

One thing I like AB's commentary is that he knows many players in person and shares funny stories. Also I am very much impressed that he is not only learning how to speak Chinese (for better communication with Chinese speaking players) but also read Chinese characters, which is way more difficult for foreigners. In the first semifinal, he saw a poster of "FZD must win" written in Chinese and read it out!

 

[NextLevel]

One thing I like AB's commentary is that he knows many players in person and shares funny stories. Also I am very much impressed that he is not only learning how to speak Chinese (for better communication with Chinese speaking players) but also read Chinese characters, which is way more difficult for foreigners. In the first semifinal, he saw a poster of "FZD must win" written in Chinese and read it out!

Yes - he is truly a journalist and a professional. His style may not be for everyone, but his professionalism is evident.

Many times, I hear people complaining about how he pronounces Chinese names and I ask them whether they speak Chinese and the people complaining say they don't. Yet they figure that Adam is wrong - I don't understand people who complain at times....

 

[Tornado2016]

To add to this, Adam Bobrow is about USATT 2100-2200 or about TTR 1700-1800. He is competent player who is commentating the game at the level he understands it which is quite high compared to the average tournament player. Maybe if you can find a player with TTR 2000 or USATT 2400 commentate, you can do better, but it is not going to be easy or often you find such guys and many of them don't flow well on camera. Matthew Syed and Richard Prause are the exception not the norm.

I share your opinion that Adam Bobrow does a good job. But the argument with rating points makes no sense at all. True, TTR 1700-1800 is better than the average, but it is also far, far away from professional table tennis. Even in Germany there are about 5000 listed players with more than TTR 1800. It shouldn't be hard to find someone with a playing level higher than Bobrow's to comment those games. But to find someone who is doing better than him, that's difficult because he provides a nice mix of emotions, background information and table tennis knowledge. And if he works together with someone like Prause than it is perfect. Couldn't be better!

 

[NextLevel]

I share your opinion that Adam Bobrow does a good job. But the argument with rating points makes no sense at all. True, TTR 1700-1800 is better than the average, but it is also far, far away from professional table tennis. Even in Germany there are about 5000 listed players with more than TTR 1800. It shouldn't be hard to find someone with a playing level higher than Bobrow's to comment those games. But to find someone who is doing better than him, that's difficult because he provides a nice mix of emotions, background information and table tennis knowledge. And if he works together with someone like Prause than it is perfect. Couldn't be better!

The comment on TTR makes a lot of sense because of statements like yours that it shouldn't be hard to find someone at a higher playing level to comment, while admitting that commentary is not all about technical skills. In fact, the reason that Prause does so well is not just his technical commentary, but because he was a German national team coach and shares some of his secret insights.

The other thing is that there are many people who commentate who clearly do not play the sport. There is one guy who does Euroepan League and did some T2APAC that I can swear to you is not a TT player!

 

[Atas Newton]

Speaking of commentators, the worst one I've ever heard was commentating Asian Cup not long, don't know the guy's name.

90% of the "commentaries" was him announcing the score with no enthusiasm whatsoever. Compared to that Adam is a gem.

 

[NextLevel]

Speaking of commentators, the worst one I've ever heard was commentating Asian Cup not long, don't know the guy's name.

90% of the "commentaries" was him announcing the score with no enthusiasm whatsoever. Compared to that Adam is a gem.

That is actually Ian Marshall. I like him but not everyone does. Lol.

 

[drunix80]

I think it is hard to compare CNT women's and men's team directly. First of all, CNT women's team is more dominant than men's team. Only JNT gives CNT some threats, and not to top players except Miu Hirano during Asian Championships. If I remember correctly, DN was complaining loudly in live streaming during timeout that the Nittaku ABS ball did not spin. Wu Yang complained about DHS 40+ too. From the complaints of male players, the effects on reduced spin can be compensated with more power or faster speed. Many female players are lightning fast and the new ball is not "against" them. For male players, Tomo and LGY are good examples. LGY performs way much better this year than before, he beat ML, XX, FZD in trials or China National Games, and beat some great non-CNT players internationally (he did beat Timo Boll once in Japan Open). He is not a top CNT player with relatively poor FH topspin; but the new ball is not "against" his game.

Best solution, then, would be for DHS to produce a new Hurricane Green National version. I mean wasn't Blue one produced to give CNT the extra spin advantage ??

 

[Atas Newton]

That is actually Ian Marshall. I like him but not everyone does. Lol.

does he always commentate like that? If so, what do you like about his style? I was under impression that he wasn't feeling well or something. Maybe the chinese heat got to him lol.

 

[rainneverever]

I think it is always good to have a professional commentator (better a former player) and a guest (current player or coach) at the same time. Yang Ying, a former World Champion, is the main TT commentator of CCTV sports; in addition to background info, she explains what specific techniques the players just used (there are too many Chinese terms!) and sometimes guesses how the players will adjust. She usually does a better job with a guest like a CNT coach when they starts some interesting conversations; cons - they may drift away and ignore the ongoing match.
LGL, WLQ, M Lin, Wang Nan, Zhang Yining, Chen Qi and so on commentated Marvellous 12 Trials. After winning the first stage, LSW and FZD commentated the second stage. They were fun.

 

[TTFrenzy]

Speaking of commentators, the worst one I've ever heard was commentating Asian Cup not long, don't know the guy's name.

90% of the "commentaries" was him announcing the score with no enthusiasm whatsoever. Compared to that Adam is a gem.

Ian marshall has a certain calm style which is not appealing to me but many people like him. I find it boring that he always asks the same type of questions but on the other hand TT was never a sport that will attract many journalists (thus increasing the journalism level), mathew syed and prause are definitely the bomb when it comes to commenting with excitement and knowledge at the same time. That scottish pro player with the wedgie celebration is also very good

 

[rainneverever]

does he always commentate like that? If so, what do you like about his style? I was under impression that he wasn't feeling well or something. Maybe the chinese heat got to him lol.

I thought ML vs XX 2017 WTTC semifinal was commentated by Ian Marshall? This guy sounds a little different to me.

 

[TTRockz]

 

[WorkerBee]

I thought ML vs XX 2017 WTTC semifinal was commentated by Ian Marshall? This guy sounds a little different to me.

Jun Yong is way better than Ian, even the game comments.