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  1. Europe Smash Sweden August 14-24 2025

    Just watched the match — it was played at an incredibly high level throughout. Having Truls win this event in Sweden with the crowd going nuts is fantastic for the sport and showcases the potential for the WTT Smash format. I really hope these tournaments can stick around and build enough...
  2. Europe Smash Sweden August 14-24 2025

    Weakest world #1 can be a fun exercise when we apply it at a point in time without the benefit of hindsight of what happened afterwards (which we of course don’t have for Lin Shidong at the moment). Some candidates: Ma Long in 2010: lost to Timo in the WTTTC finals (still over 2 years away from...
  3. Europe Smash Sweden August 14-24 2025

    Really impressive and clutch play from LSD. It must feel strange on his side to be losing out in the speedy backhand exchanges. But he figured out just in time he needed to slow the game and not give Gauzy as much pace to work with.
  4. Should a beginner-intermediate player play with intermediate equipment or just grow into high level equipment?

    The truth is all of the ideas for equipment you've mentioned in this thread are totally fine. Viscaria + D09c is not some crazy fast and uncontrollable combination, but Korbel + Rozena or G1 are also very decent. And it sounds like you're pretty serious about training and are already getting...
  5. WTT Champions Japan 2025 - 7-11 Aug 2025

    Your tennis knowledge is just as lacking as your knowledge of table tennis and basketball. As @NextLevel pointed out, Nadal had a winning head to head against Federer at the start of 2008. And apparently unknown to you, Federer actually then won 7 out of their last 8 matches they played against...
  6. WTT Champions Japan 2025 - 7-11 Aug 2025

    On top of that, picking Steph Curry of all people as an example is hilariously ill-informed. It's hard to think of a modern-day athlete who had a greater transformative impact on how their sport was played, from on-court tactics to the strategic elements of team roster construction and resource...
  7. WTT Champions Japan 2025 - 7-11 Aug 2025

    I guess your understanding of basketball is just as simplistic as your understanding of table tennis. The idea that players are just fixed entities that rock up and play without any tactical or strategic adjustments/evolutions over time is simply flat wrong.
  8. WTT Champions Japan 2025 - 7-11 Aug 2025

    No. This is where you need to actually understand the underlying data and data generating process, which are the contents of the actual matches being played. There is a high volume of information contained in the actual match play, which can actually be analyzed if you understand table tennis...
  9. WTT Champions Japan 2025 - 7-11 Aug 2025

    The idea that this is some enlightened position backed by statistics is laughable. All you've managed to say is that the margins between victory and defeat are narrow, which is obviously true in any high-level competitive sport. You have no way to distinguish between random noise and changes to...
  10. DHS W968 Gold Slam, poor layer thickness uniformity

    Crazy to me that it's within their margin of error -- the top ply on one side is literally twice as thick as on the other! I'm not sure what it says about DHS's manufacturing process that this is even possible. For every Butterfly blade I've owned, it's been clear from examining the grain...
  11. Hurricane 3 arc + outer ALC blade

    I was careful in my language because I didn't want to get into the "throw angle" conversation, given how subjectively it seems to be experienced by different players. My point was about the curvature relative to a given trajectory (distinct from the "arc") and I was specifically talking about...
  12. Hurricane 3 arc + outer ALC blade

    Spin makes the ball's trajectory curve due the Magnus effect. More spin (for the same initial velocity) means a sharper curvature, and a sharper curvature (for the same initial velocity) means more spin -- that is unavoidable physics. So what's the point? If you can't make your shot follow a...
  13. United States Smash 2025, Las Vegas, 7/3-13

    Lin Shidong vs. Harimoto matches are always very tactically interesting. They have similar play styles in that they naturally prefer to counter, and their games are built around forcing/baiting the opponent into weak openings. I'll be interested to see how their rivalry develops in the coming...
  14. United States Smash 2025, Las Vegas, 7/3-13

    High altitude affects the arc. Thinner air means weaker magnus effect.
  15. Lin Yun-Ju serve

    It’s much more difficult to consistently execute a short serve this way, and even if you can I think it should mainly be used as a surprise change-up rather than a base serve. The reason is that for the serve to bounce close to your baseline and then short on the opponent’s side, the ball has...
  16. Why are we so adamant about grippy rubber needing tensor?

    “Generating power” is just technique. The idea that there’s some aspect of “power” that’s independent of technique is indeed a myth. Unless the argument is that a slow, dead rubber will literally make you build more muscle mass…that is possibly true for some people, but focused strength training...
  17. ITTF WTTC Finals Doha 2025, 5/17-25

    Both Felix and Harimoto have lost to An Jaehyun in R16 of a world championship. Clearly they've both peaked too early and will never achieve anything substantial in their careers.
  18. Is D09C the ultimate, the holy grail of rubber?

    I think you should just stick the D09c, and keep practicing with it. There's a good chance you need a new sheet, since after 6 months of 4-5 practices per week 2-3 hours each (if I understand correctly) it would be quite worn and have lost a lot of the grip and power. Based on what you say you...
  19. What is the most important area to jump from 1900 to 2100?

    Perfect breakdown of topspin vs backspin. And if we bring sidespin into it, OP should be aware of corkscrew action on the ball which makes one side of the ball behave like topspin and the other side behave like backspin (relatively speaking). This could be how OP doesn’t understand what spin...
  20. What's the difference between Butterfly and European rubbers?

    Butterfly pours massive resources into R&D — much more per product line than ESN — and manufactures all their rubbers themselves. And their rubbers definitely stand apart. You just need to hold a sheet of Butterfly and ESN rubber side by side to see the differences in sponge material, topsheet...
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