For those who think pips have a ceiling

[ViperTableTennis]

99% of your posts are on this thread, same with Viper. You have literally 0 credibility. I won't waste any more time with you two.

Nvm I figured out how to ignore... this function is rather nice.

I would genuinely love for you to explain what my wider forum activity has got to do with the discussion going on in this thread! Why can't you just engage with the points I'm actually making in this thread rather than keep trying to divert attention away from my comments and towards the fact that I don't (yet) have 100's of posts in other threads? My 'credibility' should be judged based on the comments I've actually made...not the fact that I haven't yet made lots of comments in lots of different threads! As things stand at the moment, I have a total of 23 posts on this forum and have received 40 'likes' on those posts from other forum members. That averages out at 1.7 'likes' per post which feels like a pretty good "credibility rating" to me...at least it does when I compare it to your average of 0.8 'likes' per post, anyway!

 

[longrange]

It's not quite an appeal to authority. I personally ask the question about CNT back then, on the verge of nineties–nineties. They all play pips (obviously optimizing a lot of things and NXL and HZW are the remnants of that era. I can't say HZW is mediocre in any part of the game), they don't have top inverted, they have to study swedes and copy their game, they drop out from the top for some time, they still have LGL, who delivers insanely and yet they still choose double inverted. Why?

Ok, I looked a little deeper into this story and the pivoting moment was WTTC in Dortmund, where in singles won Waldner, silver Persson and Grubba and Yu Shentong with bronze. In the team event Chinese lost to Swedes 0-5 and it looks like that was the last straw. The old CNT was dissolved and they dug up all the inverted they had.

Cai Zhenhua (one of the few successful inverted players with powerful topspin in CNT) becomes the head coach and starts to reorganize the whole Chinese table tennis. This leads to appearance of Kong Linghui and Wang Liqin on the stage by the mid/end of ninetees. The real fluke here is actually Liu Guoliang. By the time he makes it to the national team pips are already abandoned, the system is completely changed, he is the only one with pips on FH there and only his talent and complicated serves allow him to play in the team.

 

[ViperTableTennis]

Ok, I looked a little deeper into this story and the pivoting moment was WTTC in Dortmund, where in singles won Waldner, silver Persson and Grubba and Yu Shentong with bronze. In the team event Chinese lost to Swedes 0-5 and it looks like that was the last straw. The old CNT was dissolved and they dug up all the inverted they had.

Cai Zhenhua (one of the few successful inverted players with powerful topspin in CNT) becomes the head coach and starts to reorganize the whole Chinese table tennis. This leads to appearance of Kong Linghui and Wang Liqin on the stage by the mid/end of ninetees. The real fluke here is actually Liu Guoliang. By the time he makes it to the national team pips are already abandoned, the system is completely changed, he is the only one with pips on FH there and only his talent and complicated serves allow him to play in the team.

What you're saying here ties in with the article that NextLevel referenced in post number 117 on this thread. That article states:

"In the late 1980’s/early 1990s, China was slow to adjust to changing technique, sticking too long with most pips-out style games while the rest of the world was changing to inverted looping, especially shakehand style. China has learned from that experience, and now leads the world in this very style".

 

[longrange]

Yeah but where is the affirmative action given to Chinese in other sports?! Rules for thee not for me?

Also this kind of affirmative action (manipulations) is completely antithetical to the spirit of sport - where we want to see the strongest compete. There shouldn't be disgusting shit like this, period.

I think you take Olympics a little too seriously. The results there are always worse than in other international competitions. All the records are worse and a lot of Olympic sports are not even to be considered seriously.

And yes, that's a political story: it's the competition of nations.

And yes, you cannot allow only Chinese in Olympic TT—what's the point for the Chinese themselves?

The problem is also that CNT will now always send the strongest players against foreign associations to the Olympics where they have an unhindered path to the final without meeting any pesky team-mates.

And otherwise they would send there whom exactly? They want to win in an international competition and they send "the strongest against foreign associations". Big surprise.

 

[Lando]

Ni is amazing, but I think the best LP player that's ever played professionally is Zhou Xintong.

 

[Shine]

If we are to believe his training partner, he used to lose to his double inverted training partner who mimicked Waldner in practice all the time. So whether his advantage was the ceiling of his equipment or the Chinese training system that gave him a practice partner to optimize his game, I'll leave that to people to decide.

The secrets of Chinese table tennis

Table tennis information site. This web site has lots of information on strokes, basics, rules, injury info, articles, interviews, links and video clips both in English and in Turkish.

www.masatenisi.org

Ah yes, his training partner that was supposed to beneath him in traditional Chinese hierarchy stepping over him during pushups. Frankly much of this sounds like some republican think tank composition with some good dose of Mccarthyrist sensationalism, or not to go too far - the daily news headline.

 

[NextLevel]

Ah yes, his training partner that was supposed to beneath him in traditional Chinese hierarchy stepping over him during pushups. Frankly much of this sounds like some republican think tank composition with some good dose of Mccarthyrist sensationalism, or not to go too far - the daily news headline.

Hahaha - the training partner is listed a co-writer and went on to have a successful career in table tennis outside of China playing for/in the USA. I am usually skeptical in my professional life, hence my framing, but I know the journalist/main writer of the co-writers is anything but politically sensationalist, rightwing or gullible (http://tabletenniscoaching.com/) even if he does sometimes write science fiction (btw stepping over him is not the same as standing over him) while the training partner (https://mdttc.com/cheng-yinghua/) has enough links to China and high level table tennis that there is no serious reason to doubt his account unless you really want to believe that he was really that low on the hierarchy but still travelled outside of China on behalf of the team.

 

[longrange]

Ok, I looked a little deeper into this story and the pivoting moment was WTTC in Dortmund, where in singles won Waldner, silver Persson and Grubba and Yu Shentong with bronze. In the team event Chinese lost to Swedes 0-5 and it looks like that was the last straw. The old CNT was dissolved and they dug up all the inverted they had.

I think I should add how and why Chinese lost for the completeness, after all it was my main question in this thread. This touches on tactics and the limits of the game at that age.

CNT played pips basically on the table, whereas Europeans played topspins much farther away from the table hitting the descending ball. The advantage of the CNT players here is obvious: they attacked long flying balls with spin-insensitive pips and were happy doing that.

The Swedes began to loop the ball in its apex point, much closer to the table. Closer to the table, loaded ball—now pips become passive against the topspin attack, because what do you do? Block? With the traditional chinese penhold? Not exactly a winning strategy on the top level.

What did Chinese reply? They copied this approach and enhanced it with the BH counter loop off the bounce using wrist, bringing the game even closer to the table and destroying, say, Waldner who didn't have even remotely comparable BH. This was first implemented by Kong Linghui and further improved by Wang Hao and ZJK. The natural extension of this idea was chiquita and all the modern TT.

Somewhat paradoxically we got modern backhand game from the chinese losing with pips on the FH.

Now, Kong Linghui is genius and all that, but my personal opinion is that we seriously underestimate the sheer thought power behind the CNT's coach headquarters. CNT's dominance doesn't come from the numbers, it comes from extremely efficient strategizing. Think about that: they only lost a couple of tournaments by the 1991 and managed to assess the weak points of their game, implement a completely new approach, change the whole system and come up with KLH in the timespan of some five years. Take into account that it was in the world very different from ours in terms of communication. Hats off.

 

[zeio]

Ito admits her style has inherent limitations, for the first time, I think.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...-be-revamped-for-paris-2024.24977/post-450783

 

[NextLevel]

I think I should add how and why Chinese lost for the completeness, after all it was my main question in this thread. This touches on tactics and the limits of the game at that age.

CNT played pips basically on the table, whereas Europeans played topspins much farther away from the table hitting the descending ball. The advantage of the CNT players here is obvious: they attacked long flying balls with spin-insensitive pips and were happy doing that.

The Swedes began to loop the ball in its apex point, much closer to the table. Closer to the table, loaded ball—now pips become passive against the topspin attack, because what do you do? Block? With the traditional chinese penhold? Not exactly a winning strategy on the top level.

What did Chinese reply? They copied this approach and enhanced it with the BH counter loop off the bounce using wrist, bringing the game even closer to the table and destroying, say, Waldner who didn't have even remotely comparable BH. This was first implemented by Kong Linghui and further improved by Wang Hao and ZJK. The natural extension of this idea was chiquita and all the modern TT.

Somewhat paradoxically we got modern backhand game from the chinese losing with pips on the FH.

Now, Kong Linghui is genius and all that, but my personal opinion is that we seriously underestimate the sheer thought power behind the CNT's coach headquarters. CNT's dominance doesn't come from the numbers, it comes from extremely efficient strategizing. Think about that: they only lost a couple of tournaments by the 1991 and managed to assess the weak points of their game, implement a completely new approach, change the whole system and come up with KLH in the timespan of some five years. Take into account that it was in the world very different from ours in terms of communication. Hats off.

I think you give KLH credit without realizing that a significant part of his development happened in Europe (Sweden). The coaches in Europe worked hard on teaching him backhand and were proud of their work doing so.

 

[longrange]

I think you give KLH credit without realizing that a significant part of his development happened in Europe (Sweden). The coaches in Europe worked hard on teaching him backhand and were proud of their work doing so.

Thanks, I didn't know. Of course, most of such accounts will have a lot of backwards rationalizations, especially from a layman like me—I'm very aware of it. It usually takes a work of a proper historian to dig up all the details and show the real, nuanced story.

Nevertheless, if you look at KLH's game you'll see a very modern approach to BH and to its use. Even if Sweden played a role there I don't think they implemented anything similar, whereas CNT took full advantage of it.

 

[NextLevel]

Thanks, I didn't know. Of course, most of such accounts will have a lot of backwards rationalizations, especially from a layman like me—I'm very aware of it. It usually takes a work of a proper historian to dig up all the details and show the real, nuanced story.

Nevertheless, if you look at KLH's game you'll see a very modern approach to BH and to its use. Even if Sweden played a role there I don't think they implemented anything similar, whereas CNT took full advantage of it.

I don't think of KLH quite that way though he is definitely one of my all time favorite players. I don't think he was *very modern*, he definitely didn't dominate the backhand diagonal like modern players do, even if aspects of his play are more balanced than say Wang Liqin, and he pivoted *a lot*. Someone like Korbel or Samsonov or Saive or even Persson for me is more similar to modern play where there is a balanced ability to attack from both wings viciously, even off the serve. You don't get quite that level of two winged viciousness on CNT until Wang Hao, though of course there were lots of players with good backhsnds before that.

 

[longrange]

CNT played pips basically on the table, whereas Europeans played topspins much farther away from the table hitting the descending ball. The advantage of the CNT players here is obvious: they attacked long flying balls with spin-insensitive pips and were happy doing that.

The Swedes began to loop the ball in its apex point, much closer to the table. Closer to the table, loaded ball—now pips become passive against the topspin attack, because what do you do? Block? With the traditional chinese penhold? Not exactly a winning strategy on the top level.

What did Chinese reply? They copied this approach and enhanced it with the BH counter loop off the bounce using wrist, bringing the game even closer to the table and destroying, say, Waldner who didn't have even remotely comparable BH. This was first implemented by Kong Linghui and further improved by Wang Hao and ZJK. The natural extension of this idea was chiquita and all the modern TT.

Somewhat paradoxically we got modern backhand game from the chinese losing with pips on the FH.

Having learned that I have to question once again whether Falck really is/was a fluke, rather than a glimpse of a hyper-novel style.

Modern offensive players tend to backpedal quite far away from the table: Calderano, Lebrun, Gauzy, attacking their loops with short pips makes sense again. Modern backhand with inverted rubber with chiquitas and counter loops is not a weakness anymore: one can play off the bounce, close to table and open up with a lot of spin.

To me Falck's game has a couple of annoying weakness: a total lackluster FH opening and no chiquita whatsoever. Should he had invested into banana flick all over the table (with his reach!), he could have become far, far more successful.

 

[longrange]

I don't think of KLH quite that way though he is definitely one of my all time favorite players. I don't think he was *very modern*, he definitely didn't dominate the backhand diagonal like modern players do, even if aspects of his play are more balanced than say Wang Liqin, and he pivoted *a lot*. Someone like Korbel or Samsonov or Saive or even Persson for me is more similar to modern play where there is a balanced ability to attack from both wings viciously, even off the serve. You don't get quite that level of two winged viciousness on CNT until Wang Hao, though of course there were lots of players with good backhsnds before that.

Sure, it was still different generation, but I meant things like this:

Not sure if the timing in the embedded video is correct. Last game, 12:6.

 

[NextLevel]

Sure, it was still different generation, but I meant things like this:

Not sure if the timing in the embedded video is correct. Last game, 12:6.

That's against Waldner, if you are going to say that no one else was playing similarly, it's not by looking at one player who had a forehand oriented style. What about this 3 years earlier?

Or this?

Kong had a strong backhand but his offensive use of the shot was nothing special. For me, looking for great Chinese backhands, I would start with this guy. You see a tendency to pivot less and to use the backhand to open more. In fact if you watch Schlager vs Kong Linghui, again, you will see that Kong had a good control backhand, but he wasn't a backhand player. It's not by comparing him to Waldner who was even more dated in many ways that you will see that.

 

[blahness]

Ito admits her style has inherent limitations, for the first time, I think.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...-be-revamped-for-paris-2024.24977/post-450783

It's mostly because she is addicted to FH smashing using inverted, which is far from the best use of inverted. She never developed a true quality consistent FH loopkill and loop. Everyone was exploiting her weaknesses and lack of stability on the FH. And it is a self inflicted weakness imo.

 

[blahness]

Having learned that I have to question once again whether Falck really is/was a fluke, rather than a glimpse of a hyper-novel style.

Modern offensive players tend to backpedal quite far away from the table: Calderano, Lebrun, Gauzy, attacking their loops with short pips makes sense again. Modern backhand with inverted rubber with chiquitas and counter loops is not a weakness anymore: one can play off the bounce, close to table and open up with a lot of spin.

To me Falck's game has a couple of annoying weakness: a total lackluster FH opening and no chiquita whatsoever. Should he had invested into banana flick all over the table (with his reach!), he could have become far, far more successful.

Yes, this is what I said in the other thread, a lot of pips players over rely on the pips and didn't develop their inverted side to the max unlike a lot of inverted players. Imo they already overachieved relative to their technical level.