Benyamin Faraji 14 years old.

[piligrim]

When he loop his arm going too far. Does why he always doesn't have enough time.

 

[dingyibvs]

When he loop his arm going too far. Does why he always doesn't have enough time.

Can't be 100% sure but I think that's the issue as well. His big motion means he needs to play farther back from the table, which is not great for today's game.

 

[NextLevel]

It seems once u get used to Faraji serve, it’s light work to beat him. CDS had a bit of trouble but once he adapted he destroyed Benyamin.

It shows how bad WCQ’s post olympic mental state was

Yeah, Lin Shidong also had a bad post Olympic mental state, he barely beat Faraji at the same tournament.

The boy is 15, give him a break.

 

[NextLevel]

Can't be 100% sure but I think that's the issue as well. His big motion means he needs to play farther back from the table, which is not great for today's game.

He is 15, playing with a Mizutani SZLC, it's completely normal for kids at that age to have underpowered forehands and to struggle with them playing against top pros until their full strength kicks in at 17 and 18 with more growth and training.

 

[NextLevel]

he is very beatable, a list of players that beat him:
SAKOWICZ Mateusz (POL)
IWAIDA Shunto (JPN)
HIRATSUKA Kenyu (JPN)
OKADA Sora (JPN)
ESSID Wassim (TUN)
CHENG Hong Yu (TPE)
KURMANGALIYEV Alan (KAZ)
CHOI Jiwook (KOR)
ZHOU Guanhong (CHN)
HSU Hsien-Chia (TPE)
KRIVOKAPIC Jaksa (MNE)
OCAL Gorkem (TUR)
BHATTACHARJEE Ankur (IND)
LEE Seungsoo (KOR)
CHANG Yu-An (TPE)
KIM Gaon (KOR)
BAE Won (AUS)
LAM Nathan (FRA)
CLOSSET Tom (BEL)
TESSIER Noah (FRA)
LOVHA Mykhailo (SVK)

and these are only WTT Youth competition so far in 2025

Most of those players are significantly older.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Most of those players are significantly older.

So are those CNT players

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Can't be 100% sure but I think that's the issue as well. His big motion means he needs to play farther back from the table, which is not great for today's game.

His motion is indeed too big

 

[NextLevel]

So are the loosing CNT players

Those were interesting displays of potential and taking advantage of an unfamiliar game, they do not mean the kid doesn't have exploitable gaps. Same with almost any player at that age not named Fan Zhendong

As juniors, when playing fellow juniors, usually you look at the age difference to see how the junior is progressing. Patric Baum at 18/19 beat Mizutani at 15/16 to win the WJTTC. I think we already established that in addition to being more used to the ball, there were other issues at Asian Champs.

With Faraji, as with Harimoto, what i find less important than how he plays now is whether he will get the right coaching to develop. But his u15 bronze at WJTTC shows he is here to stay.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Those were interesting displays of potential and taking advantage of an unfamiliar game, they do not mean the kid doesn't have exploitable gaps. Same with almost any player at that age not named Fan Zhendong

As juniors, when playing fellow juniors, usually you look at the age difference to see how the junior is progressing. Patric Baum at 18/19 beat Mizutani at 15/16 to win the WJTTC. I think we already established that in addition to being more used to the ball, there were other issues at Asian Champs.

With Faraji, as with Harimoto, what i find less important than how he plays now is whether he will get the right coaching to develop. But his u15 bronze at WJTTC shows he is here to stay.

how about this kids?
HIRATSUKA Kenyu (JPN)
TESSIER Noah (FRA)
ESSID Wassim (TUN)
LEE Seungsoo (KOR)
CHENG Hong Yu

either same age or younger
2024 has a lot of more matches in same age or younger losses.

as I said, the kid is very much beatable in the youth space. I didn't say he is here to stay or not stay.

 

[NextLevel]

how about this kids?
HIRATSUKA Kenyu (JPN)
TESSIER Noah (FRA)
ESSID Wassim (TUN)
LEE Seungsoo (KOR)
CHENG Hong Yu

either same age or younger
2024 has a lot of more matches in same age or younger losses.

as I said, the kid is very much beatable in the youth space. I didn't say he is here to stay or not stay.

I dont have time to check all the ages of all those kids but ibam extremely familiar with Wassid Essim and he is at least 17, possibly older. Maybe your other kids are accurate but I dont have time ro check and it doesnt give me confidence to know that the one kid i am familiar with is already being misrepresented.

WJTTC bronze losing to China is a good result. And if he is also losing to older players that is not a big problem.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I dont have time to check all the ages of all those kids but ibam extremely familiar with Wassid Essim and he is at least 17, possibly older. Maybe your other kids are accurate but I dont have time ro check and it doesnt give me confidence to know that the one kid i am familiar with is already being misrepresented.

i also dont have time, and chatgpt could be wrong (1 age difference between the two, 2008 vs 2009 - wow)
but again, he is very much beatable, same message i'm pointing out for the 3rd time

 

[NextLevel]

i also have time, and chatgpt could be wrong
but again, he is very much beatable, same message i'm pointing out for the 3rd time

Yes but you were wrong on the ages. Listing a bunch of older players gives a misleading sample to evaluate his strength. My point is that even Harimoto was beatable so that is uninteresting. He is dominating bis age group. He is not losing to players who are less experienced than him on a regular basis. Being beatable is meaningless. Even Wang is beatable. Insightful analysis please.

 

[andzejgolot]

Sakowicz was 170 cm tall year ago...
RN he is 190 cm

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Yes but you were wrong on the ages. Listing a bunch of older players gives a misleading sample to evaluate his strength. My point is that even Harimoto was beatable so that is uninteresting. He is dominating bis age group. He is not losing to players who are less experienced than him on a regular basis. Being beatable is meaningless. Even Wang is beatable. Insightful analysis please.

2 x 2011
1 x 2010
faraji is 2009

 

[NextLevel]

2 x 2011
1 x 2010
faraji is 2009

Good at least you hopefully didnt just trust chatgpt. Like I said I dont have time to check. The one player I know there for sure Essim is at least 17. Lee Seungsoo i do know is 14. But if you can put in Wassim Essid, that for me caused enough credibility doubt. In the end, everyone is beatable. Even Harimoto. But the boy is doing well for his age group and most of the juniors higher ranked than he is are older

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Good at least you hopefully didnt just trust chatgpt. Like I said I dont have time to check. The one player I know there for sure Essim is at least 17. Lee Seungsoo i do know is 14. But if you can put in Wassim Essid, that for me caused enough credibility doubt. In the end, everyone is beatable. Even Harimoto. But the boy is doing well for his age group and most of the juniors higher ranked than he is are older

Harimoto wasn't beatable, at least not from random French unknown that is 2 years younger
as I said, if you spend just 1 min to pull up the 2024 data, you can see there are a lot more younger kids too.

Faraji is good, but not a prodigy
He may do well to stay get into top 20, or maybe more a 20 to 40 player

 

[NextLevel]

Harimoto wasn't beatable, at least not from random French unknown that is 2 years younger
as I said, if you spend just 1 min to pull up the 2024 data, you can see there are a lot more younger kids too.

Faraji is good, but not a prodigy
He may do well to stay get into top 20, or maybe more a 20 to 40 player

Yeah the same data that showed Wassim Essid as younger than Faraji

Just about any kid who plays at that level is a prodigy. It is all relative. And usually, someone who is genuinely interested in the player takes a deeper look at a lot of things, and doesnt go out of his way ro list a player like 19 year old Chang Yu An next to a 15 year old turning 16 like Faraji. Usually when you see stuff like that, it tells you some of what is really driving this.

 

[joshmak10]

Benyamin isnt going on insane senior level tournament runs like Tomo, Felix, and Alexis as examples. Besides maybe the latter, the former two started regularly taking town Top 100 and even Top 50 players in their mid teens, and ofc we know what Tomo did when he was 14. But Benyamin, besides his good results against a mentally messed up WCQ and a LSD who had been going to back to back to back to back WTT tournaments prior, hasn’t had any insane runs on the WTT senior stage. And if he loses rather easily to WR65 Cho Daeseong in the first round of qualifying for Europe smash, I fear he may be just a Top 50 prodigy at best, not a Felix or Tomo level prodigy.

 

[NextLevel]

Benyamin isnt going on insane senior level tournament runs like Tomo, Felix, and Alexis as examples. Besides maybe the latter, the former two started regularly taking town Top 100 and even Top 50 players in their mid teens, and ofc we know what Tomo did when he was 14. But Benyamin, besides his good results against a mentally messed up WCQ and a LSD who had been going to back to back to back to back WTT tournaments prior, hasn’t had any insane runs on the WTT senior stage. And if he loses rather easily to WR65 Cho Daeseong in the first round of qualifying for Europe smash, I fear he may be just a Top 50 prodigy at best, not a Felix or Tomo level prodigy.

No, he isn't Tomo, Felix or Alexis. That said, you probably have your facts about the ages when these players made their first great runs (other than Tomo) messed up.

 

[joshmak10]

No, he isn't Tomo, Felix or Alexis. That said, you probably have your facts about the ages when these players made their first great runs (other than Tomo) messed up.

Felix’s first great run imo is Star Contender Goa 2023 (qualifying rounds all the way to semis, beat LSS, Truls, JWJ). That would make him a young and sprightly 17 year old, which is just a year older than Beyamin is right now. And I mentioned Alexis was the only one not making good runs that early, more where he made his first real good run at 18-19.