TTBL (Bundlesliga) 2026 - 2027

[ThePongCommenter]

Maybe banana flick counts as having short game? Maybe we are focused on short push and he is focused on over the table strokes...

I am factoring in all of it...

 

[NextLevel]

I am factoring in all of it...

Togami's chiquita is definitely superior to a lof of the players you listed.

 

[ajtatosmano2]

We're probably so far off on our short game assessment I don't know what else to say... WCQ, Felix, Sora, LYJ, Dang, Tomokazu, Truls, and Jha all come to mind as having far superior short games...I am probably missing a few...

Probably 😅....Felix and Truls were the others whom I thought as better. WCQ, FZD, Khanak, Dang are all around the same level. Tomokazu is weaker in short-short for sure. I forgot about LYJ, to be honest I would rank him a bit higher as well. Didn't count Ma Long, Xu Xin and FZD, as they are not/barely active. The margins between these players are very low.

Maybe banana flick counts as having short game? Maybe we are focused on short push and he is focused on over the table strokes...

No, I definitely meant the shor pushes and and drops. The thing is, Togami's game is not centered around those, he prefers opening up, and sharp long pushes, so we can't really see it. Harimoto uses more, but I think all the people above score well against him in the scenarios involving short-short.
I might be biased ever since I've seen Togami practice live in the training hall and was amazed by the precision and quality of his short pushes, which was much better than any other professional I've seen.

 

[NextLevel]

Probably 😅....Felix and Truls were the others whom I thought as better. WCQ, FZD, Khanak, Dang are all around the same level. Tomokazu is weaker in short-short for sure. I forgot about LYJ, to be honest I would rank him a bit higher as well. Didn't count Ma Long, Xu Xin and FZD, as they are not/barely active. The margins between these players are very low.

No, I definitely meant the shor pushes and and drops. The thing is, Togami's game is not centered around those, he prefers opening up, and sharp long pushes, so we can't really see it. Harimoto uses more, but I think all the people above score well against him in the scenarios involving short-short.
I might be biased ever since I've seen Togami practice live in the training hall and was amazed by the precision and quality of his short pushes, which was much better than any other professional I've seen.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really fall? I think you are letting your biased experience blind you.

More seriously, all pros can push short, it is the ones that do it to win points that get respect. If Togami was so good at it, he would go out of his way to win points doing it or initiating attacks off it. I have seen Nikhil Kumar push short in practice, I don't weight practice by pros as anything special, no one practices better than Marcos Freitas.

 

[NextLevel]

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Probably 😅....Felix and Truls were the others whom I thought as better. WCQ, FZD, Khanak, Dang are all around the same level. Tomokazu is weaker in short-short for sure. I forgot about LYJ, to be honest I would rank him a bit higher as well. Didn't count Ma Long, Xu Xin and FZD, as they are not/barely active. The margins between these players are very low.

No, I definitely meant the shor pushes and and drops. The thing is, Togami's game is not centered around those, he prefers opening up, and sharp long pushes, so we can't really see it. Harimoto uses more, but I think all the people above score well against him in the scenarios involving short-short.
I might be biased ever since I've seen Togami practice live in the training hall and was amazed by the precision and quality of his short pushes, which was much better than any other professional I've seen.

Well the common consensus is that it goes WCQ and then everyone else as far as short game... Felix would probably be next up IMO.

As someone who has seen every top player in the training hall, I can see where you are coming from. But things like how seriously players take their practice (or pre-match routine if you are referring to tournaments) or what they choose to focus on in practice factors into what you see. Togami takes his business seriously and is a 100% all the time type of guy. Duda and Tomo also stand out in that regard. Truls not as much in my experience. @NextLevel has already made the point but you can see someone like Alexis looking like the best player in the world in the training hall, so really what you are judging them on is what you actually see in the match. Every player at that level can do everything excellently in a practice environment. Match is a different story. There are a lot of players who can do things amazingly in practice, those who can't do it in match become sparring partners lol.

If his short short game was unmatched by anyone in the world you would see it - players at that level don't just have some secret untapped best-in-the-world skill that they are choosing to set aside.

 

[jonol]

It's also possible that he is really good at the short game, but he thinks he gets more value from opening up the point more than playing short.

In practical terms I agree though, matches and practice can be very different. The practice hall can show technical ceiling or potential, but the match shows how much of that potential they can access under pressure, when out of position, when they have to face serve variation etc.