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Why should we listen to Zhang Jike? what does he know?
TTD experts know best and we should keep teaching crab style. Stand in the middle of the table and hope and pray that your opponent makes a lot of errors. I mean just look at how much Harimoto improved. He has special magic that can "make his opponent have unforced errors".
A couple of things to note:
1. Such comments when they are genuinely constructive are usually made behind closed doors unless they are being used to bring pressure on the player.
2. In the context of whar Lin Shidong was facing at the age and ranking he had, there were no comparables other maybe Fan Zhendong. You would have to find an event where Ma Long lost to a player and the hopes of the CNT were as a result pinned on FZD to find an adequate parallel here. Why Lin Shidong's style should be the culprit after Hugo has beaten Wang is an open question.
3. ZJK is a extremely accomplished player and former singles world champion. He has also been a subject of notoriety in recent years. Players of his stature usually are working with the Chinese table tennis association in some capacity. There was open speculation on what motivated his comments. Besides that, nothing he said isn't traditional table tennis wisdom in China or other parts of the world (forehand should be primary weapon of a top player because of the athletic options it promotes), it is what you ascribe to it because he said it. As i have explained elsewhere, blaming a backhand oriented style for why a player lost a match is uninsightful in the absence of what specific things the player did or didn't do because of that style or how the opponent negated that style.
4. My opinion on Harimoto is that he is recovering from an injury. But if he decides to continue to hold the table that will be his problem if he does so injured. You obviously feel differently and that is fine. He has a lot of table tennis coming up and Xue Fei will not be the only player who knows how to hit his middle if the issue is he wants to play a style that loses to lower rated players.
