What is talent in table tennis?

[Haito]

Welp, for me talent is being able to:

• See patterns in play
• Adapt under pressure
• Control the ball despite speed / spin. Placing it exactly despite the pace.

Especially the last one. With so many variables doing this is extremely hard. There is infinity range of those variable. To adapt to that infinity range seems inhuman. Especially that you cannot practice all of those level.

 

[Metaxa]

Imo talent is having a combination of factors.
Physical coordination is probably the most important thing to have a high base value for.
Mental resilience is part innate, and definitely a big factor in the potential to reach a high level.
Grit is the most underrated part of talent. The ability to keep going, trust the process rather than the outcome, to have the conviction of improving in the long term even if you encounter short term hardship. There's a famous speech by Federer which popped up in my timeline recently where he talks about it in front of a bunch of graduates. Innate ability is just a small part of it.
Take Ovtcharov for example. The main reason that got him to where he is, is the relentless training ethic. Sure, if he didn't have any proper coordination it would have never taken off, but he made the difference by training like a beast.

I have talent. My hand-eye coordination is good, and I can process a lot of information quickly. But I don't train much, and the quality of training is not that good either. I have taken on bad habits and I'm honestly not confident. The result is a low level player with a fair bit of touch and insight but not the ability to act on it.

I agree with you for the most part, but Ovtcharov clearly hasn’t trained enough to master his short forehand push, because that’s what he’s doing there with his backhand.🤫

 

[jonol]

What Makes a Champion? Early Multidisciplinary Practice, Not Early Specialization, Predicts World-Class Performance​

Arne Güllich 1, Brooke N Macnamara 2, David Z Hambrick 3
Affiliations Expand

• PMID: 34260336
• DOI: 10.1177/1745691620974772

Abstract​

What explains the acquisition of exceptional human performance? Does a focus on intensive specialized practice facilitate excellence, or is a multidisciplinary practice background better? We investigated this question in sports. Our meta-analysis involved 51 international study reports with 477 effect sizes from 6,096 athletes, including 772 of the world's top performers. Predictor variables included starting age, age of reaching defined performance milestones, and amounts of coach-led practice and youth-led play (e.g., pickup games) in the athlete's respective main sport and in other sports. Analyses revealed that (a) adult world-class athletes engaged in more childhood/adolescent multisport practice, started their main sport later, accumulated less main-sport practice, and initially progressed more slowly than did national-class athletes; (b) higher performing youth athletes started playing their main sport earlier, engaged in more main-sport practice but less other-sports practice, and had faster initial progress than did lower performing youth athletes; and (c) youth-led play in any sport had negligible effects on both youth and adult performance. We illustrate parallels from science: Nobel laureates had multidisciplinary study/working experience and slower early progress than did national-level award winners. The findings suggest that variable, multidisciplinary practice experiences are associated with gradual initial discipline-specific progress but greater sustainability of long-term development of excellence.
Keywords: early specialization; meta-analysis; performance; practice; skill acquisition.

This all supports the idea that they should start young.

Your earlier post literally begins with, "starting young is a myth".

This study is very clearly suggesting that people should be starting young, just not spend their childhood focussed on one thing to the exclusion of others (which seems obvious).

If starting young is a myth, why would the top10 players in the world all be players who started young?

 

[lightspin]

The Ted Talk video is problematic. Maryam Mirzakhani was a famous math prodigy. She started specializing in math and science from an early age. You can read about her here:

Maryam Mirzakhani - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You can still achieve an insanely high level in math if you start late. That is you follow the standard curriculum then focus more on it starting in high school. I will agree with that statement but the example he used in the Ted talk was a bad one.

The examples of musicians were also semi nonsensical. At the club where I coach, there are instructors from Julliard and professional musicians who regularly perform at Carnegie Hall that also play table tennis. All of them have told me they can hear the difference between someone who started playing their instrument at 10 and someone who started at 4 or 6. I was shocked to hear this. One teacher said it was sad because she knows how badly people want to be high level players but no matter how hard they try, they missed a critical window in their development that prevents them from being at the highest level. Perhaps in some genres of music it doesn't matter much when you start like rock, but if you are going to play classical music in an orchestra or win competitions you had better start early.

Why is America losing to China in table tennis? Kids in America play sports nonstop. Some take table tennis quite seriously at say 14 but don't make it on the international stage. If early specialization doesn't work, why has China pretty much dominated for what seems to be forever? Why is Japan encouraging people to start playing at age 2 these days?

Give me a modern example of someone in the top 10 who randomly dabbled in table tennis then at age 14 became serious and made it to the top 10 or 20 or 30? In China there is a word for the 14 year old dabblers: retired. If you aren't 2600ish+ at 14, you are sent packing home. Maybe you can bribe the coach to be on the province B team if the coach runs his team that way, but as far as the A team goes, your career is over.

Some sports you can start late. Some activities you can start late. Table tennis is one sport you simply cannot start late if you want to be world class. It is like speaking a language. If you want to be completely fluent you had better start learning at a young age.

 

[Metaxa]

Talent is in the genes, but not everyone is born with it. I think we wrote about the Saive brothers here a long time ago. Philippe, the younger brother of the world-famous Jean-Michel, was incredibly talented and could hold his own against J-O Waldner. Despite having started at a young age (3 years) and having inherited everything from their parents (his father and mother were good players, and his father was also his coach for a long time), only J-M went on to become the best Belgian table tennis player ever and was among the absolute world elite. His brother Philippe was the better of the two, both technically and tactically, but for Philippe, table tennis was just another game to relax and have fun. His brother J-M was a hard worker, a go-getter (and that is a talent in itself). Many of you here will be familiar with the rest of the story.

 

[J-fed]

This all supports the idea that they should start young.

Your earlier post literally begins with, "starting young is a myth".

This study is very clearly suggesting that people should be starting young, just not spend their childhood focussed on one thing to the exclusion of others (which seems obvious).

If starting young is a myth, why would the top10 players in the world all be players who started young?

Alright fella. You clearly don't like learning.
It is uncomfortable for you. Never mind.

 

[J-fed]

The Ted Talk video is problematic. Maryam Mirzakhani was a famous math prodigy. She started specializing in math and science from an early age. You can read about her here:

Maryam Mirzakhani - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You can still achieve an insanely high level in math if you start late. That is you follow the standard curriculum then focus more on it starting in high school. I will agree with that statement but the example he used in the Ted talk was a bad one.

The examples of musicians were also semi nonsensical. At the club where I coach, there are instructors from Julliard and professional musicians who regularly perform at Carnegie Hall that also play table tennis. All of them have told me they can hear the difference between someone who started playing their instrument at 10 and someone who started at 4 or 6. I was shocked to hear this. One teacher said it was sad because she knows how badly people want to be high level players but no matter how hard they try, they missed a critical window in their development that prevents them from being at the highest level. Perhaps in some genres of music it doesn't matter much when you start like rock, but if you are going to play classical music in an orchestra or win competitions you had better start early.

Why is America losing to China in table tennis? Kids in America play sports nonstop. Some take table tennis quite seriously at say 14 but don't make it on the international stage. If early specialization doesn't work, why has China pretty much dominated for what seems to be forever? Why is Japan encouraging people to start playing at age 2 these days?

Give me a modern example of someone in the top 10 who randomly dabbled in table tennis then at age 14 became serious and made it to the top 10 or 20 or 30? In China there is a word for the 14 year old dabblers: retired. If you aren't 2600ish+ at 14, you are sent packing home. Maybe you can bribe the coach to be on the province B team if the coach runs his team that way, but as far as the A team goes, your career is over.

Some sports you can start late. Some activities you can start late. Table tennis is one sport you simply cannot start late if you want to be world class. It is like speaking a language. If you want to be completely fluent you had better start learning at a young age.

Language has it's own nuances. Total native ability relies on pre 9 months old exposure. Then there are clear steps at 3 and 7.
Music is also a nuanced conversation as classical and jazz have totally different requirements and skill/brain development requirements. Classical music is essentially closed skills. Not in the moment. TT is much more jazz than classical. I can introduce you to many high level violin or piano players that can not play jazz or create a song. Their opinion on how a musician handles their instrument is irrelevant to the ability of that player to create a great song or to improvise in a jam session. TT is a jam session.
Classical mastery can be imbued by early days dedication but true jazz is a very different game. Requires all kinds of winding paths.
So much desire to cling to status quo here. Can't say I'm surprised.

 

[ajtatosmano2]

In my opinion the only 'talent' that really matters is to keep enjoying practice. It's not impossible, but really-really hard to get far if you can't stand training a lot.

 

[kase]

Talent is pre-existing skill. Perhaps transferred from other activities. So when you start something new, you already have a head-start because you have talent.

The higher the level of the activity, the less talent matters and the more hard work matters. This can become a problem for talented people, because they can potentially just coast early on and don't need to adopt an appropriate work ethic from the start. Then when the non-talented people catch up, this is the first time they experience failure or sub-standard performance relative to their peers. They then need to learn how to deal with that situation emotionally, and create an appropriate work ethic at a later stage.

 

[ZSQ]

Everyone makes good points, but I think that beyond all that, the ability to recover quickly from injury is also a kind of talent. Of course, so is being less prone to injury under the same training intensity.

 

[lightspin]

Everyone makes good points, but I think that beyond all that, the ability to recover quickly from injury is also a kind of talent. Of course, so is being less prone to injury under the same training intensity.

This is definitely extremely important. I know a few players whose careers ended very quickly because they could not remain healthy. They would put in the work and achieved a good level but their body just said "Naw, I don't think so" and that was that.

 

[Füty Imre]

Everyone makes good points, but I think that beyond all that, the ability to recover quickly from injury is also a kind of talent. Of course, so is being less prone to injury under the same training intensity.

Its more genetics related but yeah, you have to be born with it also

 

[ThePongCommenter]

What Makes a Champion? Early Multidisciplinary Practice, Not Early Specialization, Predicts World-Class Performance​

Arne Güllich 1, Brooke N Macnamara 2, David Z Hambrick 3
Affiliations Expand

• PMID: 34260336
• DOI: 10.1177/1745691620974772

Abstract​

What explains the acquisition of exceptional human performance? Does a focus on intensive specialized practice facilitate excellence, or is a multidisciplinary practice background better? We investigated this question in sports. Our meta-analysis involved 51 international study reports with 477 effect sizes from 6,096 athletes, including 772 of the world's top performers. Predictor variables included starting age, age of reaching defined performance milestones, and amounts of coach-led practice and youth-led play (e.g., pickup games) in the athlete's respective main sport and in other sports. Analyses revealed that (a) adult world-class athletes engaged in more childhood/adolescent multisport practice, started their main sport later, accumulated less main-sport practice, and initially progressed more slowly than did national-class athletes; (b) higher performing youth athletes started playing their main sport earlier, engaged in more main-sport practice but less other-sports practice, and had faster initial progress than did lower performing youth athletes; and (c) youth-led play in any sport had negligible effects on both youth and adult performance. We illustrate parallels from science: Nobel laureates had multidisciplinary study/working experience and slower early progress than did national-level award winners. The findings suggest that variable, multidisciplinary practice experiences are associated with gradual initial discipline-specific progress but greater sustainability of long-term development of excellence.
Keywords: early specialization; meta-analysis; performance; practice; skill acquisition.

The sport matters here. I would be shocked if elite TT players were included in this study.

 

[zeio]

Sora started playing at 2.
Harimoto started at 2.
I believe the Lebrun brothers started at 2 or 3.
There are tons of kids in china training full time at age 6 or so.
If pressed, I could find a quote of one of the heads of the Japanese table tennis association who said the ideal age to introduced table tennis was age 2.

The latest age of someone that broke the top 30 I know of was Duda who said he started playing at age 10. His dad was a professional player, so I sincerely doubt they never hit the ball together before age 10, but who knows.

I think in other sports starting late isn't so much of a problem. In table tennis, I think it is absolutely necessary. But maybe you know of some people who started at age 13 or 14 and broke into the top 30 or 50.

Here's a Japanese article by JIJI Press News on starting table tennis early from 12/2018, citing comments from renowned coaches of China and Japan.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/child-abuse-japanese-style.19755/post-252128

 

[LucasHoang2013]

discipline and focus, if not then maybe how fast they improve overtime and how consistent they are. To me discipline is also a talent, the best talent there is tbh

 

[zeio]

A big problem with starting late has to do with things outside the control of the athletes, such as politics.

港隊再報捷 　乒乓男單黃鎮廷晉級16強
https://news.hket.com/article/1479124/港隊再報捷 　乒乓男單黃鎮廷晉級16強

黃鎮廷12歲加入恒生乒乓球學院精英隊，16歲入選香港青年隊，18歲正式成為香港成年隊一員，並投身全職運動員行列，香港乒乓球代表隊總教練陳江華說：

"當年九成人不認同他，覺得他年紀大不想收他入隊，我卻覺得可以栽培。"

教練陳江華認為，黃鎮廷體能條件好，雖不是天份高，卻勝在肯捱苦，再加上他「直拍橫打」的獨特打法，經過6年努力，黃鎮廷由世界排名679位，升至現時的第8位。

Wong Chun Ting joined the elite squad of the Hang Seng Table Tennis Academy at age 12, made the Hong Kong youth team at 16, and became a full-time member of the senior Hong Kong team at 18. Hong Kong table tennis team head coach Chan Kong Wah recalls:

"Back then, ninety percent of people didn't believe in him; they thought he was too old to be recruited. I, however, saw his potential for development."

Coach Chan believes that while Wong may not possess exceptional natural talent, he is physically fit and—crucially—willing to endure hardship. Combined with his unique "penhold shakehand-backhand" playing style, 6 years of hard work have propelled him from a world ranking of 679th to his current position of 8th.