says
Master blocker
says
Master blocker
Member
Personally I don't think that Gauzy feels bad about the incident. It was just a crucial point and didn't want to lose the game, so he used any means to do it.I guess I will get a lot of shit or love for my post.
Just to get it out of the way, that was an edge ball without a question and I bet Simon feels horrible after the fact for contesting it because he looks like a fraud and he is on camera. I am sure he is not a fraud, he is one of the last of the Mohicans who plays entertaining table tennis. (since XX is in retirement and Zhou Qihao is like a sinus scale in his performance)
But anyway I play table tennis for very long and I am aware of my opponent's contact position and bat angle etc etc more than my opponent is! If I am aware then Simon must be too. I'm sorry, there is no way in this heated moment he blinked.
During a side ball even the bounce sound is very different than edge.
But the problem is that the umpires are mostly just droids flipping the score and once confronted they change their opinion.
For argument's sake if the umpire were Guoliang, Persson, Rosskopf... heck just to not name super respected well-seasoned sly AF foxes, if the umpire were Harimoto and his sis they would have known what happened and Gauzy would have been shut down. I am sure. And I'm talking about Chinese-Japanese players who have the utmost respect.
I don't expect umpires to be pro table tennis players who know all, but for frack's sake look at the bloody replay screen what is happening, and the players can do the same and get to an agreement.
You don't need eagle eye tech, just look at the replay.
My biggest issue is that Mohammed gave up on the point purely on the fact that Simon is a well-respected tour player while he is (well let's face it) not.
The shot came from inside the table, so it was physically impossible to be a side and he was fully aware of that.
He just took advantage -as you very well point out- that he is a famous player while Mohammed is not. He was really lucky that the umpire was a passive one that caved in his "bullying".
Had it been another umpire, he wouldn't be so lucky...