World Tour Grand Finals 2013

[TurboZ]

Have not seen XX play this good in a long time. Congratulation.

 

[Alborz]

Great final match! Xu Xin won 3:4 (8:11, 12:10, 6:11, 11:8, 5:11, 11:4, 5:11). Congratulations to Xu Xin.
If Ma Long had won, he would be the only male player in history to win 4 World Tour Grand Finals titles. Now he is the same with Wang Liqin with 3 World Tour Grand Finals titles.

 

[Alborz]

Who Dimitrij Ovtcharov lost to?

He lost to Kim Minseok in the first round.

 

[matzreenzi]

good game both..congrats to XX

 

[Ma long the best]

Congratulations to Xu Xin! Great match!

 

[TTFrenzy]

Thats great news for TT, I didnt expect XX to win it in a so convincing way. I was quite sure that FZD will be soon #4 in the CNT throwing XX out, but XX changed his tactics since the last world tour and totally outsmarted ML with different tactics. Very strong loop winners, wide pushes and fast flicks, never seen XX play with so much confidence. I hope it wasnt a one in a million performance and he will continue to play like this

 

[ttmonster]

Quite the same feeling here TTFrenzy . Congratulations to Xu Xin !!! I feel one big thing he has managed to change and correct is his propensity to fall back from the table to get into rallies . He is taking the ball early and trying to finish the rally instead of just showboating with side spin from back of the table . So I guess we are going to see some changed dynamics at the top ! This is exciting for sure !

 

[Alborz]

Quite the same feeling here TTFrenzy . Congratulations to Xu Xin !!! I feel one big thing he has managed to change and correct is his propensity to fall back from the table to get into rallies . He is taking the ball early and trying to finish the rally instead of just showboating with side spin from back of the table . So I guess we are going to see some changed dynamics at the top ! This is exciting for sure !

I prefer his original style to watch instead of watching him playing close to the table because now the rallies are not as long as before and he does not uses his side spin loops anymore. Playing close ti the table is more effective but boring to watch.

 

[ttmonster]

I agree Alborz, there actually some great rallies with Ma Long in the initial sets . But if he continued down that path he would have been kicked out from the CNT top players list soon by the new and upcoming players like Fan Zhendong and Yan An etc., even Liu Guoliang was criticizing him frequently, so he did not have any other choice

 

[TTFrenzy]

I prefer his original style to watch instead of watching him playing close to the table because now the rallies are not as long as before and he does not uses his side spin loops anymore. Playing close ti the table is more effective but boring to watch.

Well I think close to the table play is more spectacular if you ask me but that's only my personal opinion. XX was lobbing and attacking away from the table for too long. The evolution of the chinese game made the rallies more spinny, topspins and countertopspins with fast pace are always fun to watch. XX destroyed ML today, the match went at full stretch only because XX was not consistent and made easy mistakes in set #2 and #4

 

[Alborz]

Well I think close to the table play is more spectacular if you ask me but that's only my personal opinion. XX was lobbing and attacking away from the table for too long. The evolution of the chinese game made the rallies more spinny, topspins and countertopspins with fast pace are always fun to watch. XX destroyed ML today, the match went at full stretch only because XX was not consistent and made easy mistakes in set #2 and #4

Xu Xin makes those mistakes because playing near the table is not his game. His game is looping and counter looping away from the table but still playing close to the table has enough advantages to cover those mistakes of Xu Xin.

 

[TTFrenzy]

Alborz he made mistakes in pushes and looping against underspin, I dont think that those mistakes have anything to do with his game but mostly because he is not so consistent like ZJK ML WH... even FZD makes less unforced errors.

He proved us today (I dont think anyone expected him to clinch the Gfinals) that he can play very good close to the table, I suppose you prefer him to play away from the table but even against Europeans (Ovtcharov, Samsonov) he struggled a lot with that strategy.

Anyway he is a spectacular player no matter his strategies, it is good for the game if he can continue to outsmart ML (who had a 29-7 winning record against him before this match) FZD and even ZJK. If FZD YA and ZY develop as expected we will definetely witness one of the best eras of modern table tennis

 

[Dan]

I missed the final guys. Well dons to Xu Xin! Sounds like he played great! Looking forward to the highlights from the youtubers

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy

 

[bzing]

Ma Long switched few times from H3 to red tenergy rubber when smashing high balls, first time he won the point, second time he missed the ball and you could see his face looking all disappointed, and there was another time I think where he switched to tenergy again at the end.

Another thing, Ma Long numerous times he used backhand spin-block, he also used it in other matches, with Kazuhiro Chan for instance.

Both Xu Xin and Ma Long were firing incredible powerful loops at each other, that's why there weren't really long rallies although few were quite exciting. In the semi-final match Ma Long against Kim was looking all so relaxed and not bothered at all whenever he lost a point because clearly there is such an advantage of Ma Long over Kim, In the match with Xu Xin however both players were going perturbed whenever they lost a point and the match ended 4-3 so it shows how equal the level of these players are.

 

[Mikael Berglund]

Great finals! I think that XX has evolved his game quite a bit. More dynamics and good use of angles and playing straight. Ma Long has also changed is game. Nice to see! I have not seen XX play this good in a long while and Ma Long was also playing great.

 

[Alborz]

Great performance by Xu Xin in the final. Something i noticed is Xu Xin plays most of his backhand shots with RPB and was trying to flick all of serves with his RPB. Also powerlooping with his backhand a lot. This clearly shows that he is developing his technique for playing close to the table that needs a good backhand. I hope he could perform like this in the future.

 

[tan.theveteran]

it was a great match indeed. XX's powershots gave me the chills.

 

[denjell]

FZ vs XX

hey guys,

where can I find the "best of fan vs xu" ??

 

[Dan]

Smile

 

[Vector Operator]

I love how only 5.56% of voters predicted XX to win.
Why was the number so low?
Because 94.44% of voters play shakehand!