China Smash 2026, Beijing, 10/1-11

[zeio]

For competitive sports, medals and titles are most important measurements of achievement, and most objective. How others regard can be quite subjective.

Once again, it doesn't matter as that's not the point of contention here, just like those Tieba users who concurred that Moregard was way more lucky in the Olympics and WTTC, or like the views of former HKG players and coaches on Harimoto.

Harimoto acknowledged Moregard's silver medal in Part-4 of the Butterfly interview after Paris 2024 but he specifically said that F. Lebrun was the complete player and the ultimate form of Moregard's style that lacks a strong BH. Harimoto acknowledged that WCQ and Moregard as the world champion and Olympic silver medalist, respectively at WTT CS Yokohama 2025, and how those 2 focused on keeping the point short and they knew he would have the upper hand if they played out the point.

 

[NextLevel]

Once again, it doesn't matter as that's not the point of contention here, just like those Tieba users who concurred that Moregard was way more lucky in the Olympics and WTTC, or like the views of former HKG players and coaches on Harimoto.

Harimoto acknowledged Moregard's silver medal in Part-4 of the Butterfly interview after Paris 2024 but he specifically said that F. Lebrun was the complete player and the ultimate form of Moregard's style that lacks a strong BH. Harimoto acknowledged that WCQ and Moregard as the world champion and Olympic silver medalist, respectively at WTT CS Yokohama 2025, and how those 2 focused on keeping the point short and they knew he would have the upper hand if they played out the point.

If you call being lucky winning medals by beating players who you have never beaten before or whom you were not favored to beat (WCQ, HC) or beating players who eliminated your rivals and had traditionally insurmountable leads against you (LJH, ,ST) then sure Truls was lucky. In the end, it is best for a player to create his own luck. Had Truls not gotten "TIEBA lucky" and beaten a player whom he has never beaten before, we would not be having this conversation. In the real world, some of us call what Tiebans call luck "coming through in the clutch".

Truls absense of a backhand is very much overstated. If it is that bad, then everyone should be beating him.

 

[Dr Evil]

Truls absense of a backhand is very much overstated. If it is that bad, then everyone should be beating him.

Truls has a great backhand (except for the loop which is getting better but still far from great).

 

[NetProphet]

Congratulations making the finals of a Grand Smash Super Sato ... what an amazing player!

View attachment 43719

Will be interesting.
She has already beaten WM 3-0 at the US this year and won a few finals also.
However I do (as probably most do) expect Manyu to get the job done.
What you reckon, will it be close?

 

[NextLevel]

Well they have given Wang Manyu 24 hours. It would have been harder if it was a same day adjustment. A lot will come down ro her health, I think WMY has excellent form and has been borderline unbeatabke for a while now.

Will be interesting.
She has already beaten WM 3-0 at the US this year and won a few finals also.
However I do (as probably most do) expect Manyu to get the job done.
What you reckon, will it be close?

 

[allencorn]

I wonder if Hashimoto shared any ideas with Sato before the semis. Do members of the team help one another when strategizing against foreign opponents, or is that left up to the coaches?

 

[NetProphet]

Truls has a great backhand (except for the loop which is getting better but still far from great).

I would respectfully disagree here.
It will of course depend on how you define what you mean by use of the word 'great' here but in terms of who you have to compare him against, say the entire rest of the worlds top 30, his backhand is not that great. Unless you have 'great' with greater and greatest above that 😉 in which case Moregards BH is 3rd tier, which I would agree with.

By standards below the top 30 in would say it's brilliant.

For me a great BH is one that you can rely on to win you matches when other plans are not working out. I don't see that Truls can do this. I see a few who can rely on BH power to win crucial points and players who are comfortable and ready to go into BH-BH exchanges but I don't think Truls is one of them. He often prefers to execute his chop block on that side when pinned there in an attempt to recapture momentum for a FH finish.
All just my opinion of course and interested in other assessments on this but imo, if Truls had a BH that opponents feared he really would be close to the complete player.