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Again, missing the point entirely. You mean that despite having been decoded by the CNT, Harimoto was still able to beat a CNT player who had every opportunity to take advantage of his weak forehand? How on earth did this happen? I can find some video of forehand points in that match if you...

Let me be clearer, I should have said gold/silver medal candidates. Harimoto and Ito were so trchnically deficient per usualsuspect that they could improve with age but lacked the time to develop solutions to the deficiencies recent games have exposed (Sun Wen, Wang Yidi). Usualsuspect of...

Well, we have you on record saying that they have both been decoded sufficiently by the CNT to be ignored as 2020 medal candidates. Please remember to continually share that so that if you are right, you get the pat on the back you deserve.

Almost anything in the Carbonado X45 series.

He has improved some of his swings for sure.

I think one way of gauging Ito's performance is to compare the ease with which Chen beat He vs how Chen battled Ito. He even ceded the match early realizing that nothing she did would work.

Just saw the Harimoto vs Takuya highlights. Jim played really well and managed to bring out some of those bad forehands that Harimoto gets forced to play when he doesn't move away from the table. The final will be interesting and that is the match I would watch if I was Zhao.

His father.

Looks like Marcos is also playing with his signature blade at last.

Another big problem for Japan next year is Chinese Taipei. Lin Yun Ju seems to have elevated the Hope's of all the Taiwanese players and I can see them being another contender for gold in all events if LYJ plays sufficiently well. CCA and CCY are not pushovers and are a strong doubles team as well.

This post is so politically incorrect - Carl, I am sure you don't plan on running for President any time soon.

The plastic ball has just exposed Dima much more than ideal. The opening no longer has the extreme value it does, so his backhand opener is more devalued, his serve spin is not that devastating and the balanced rallying isn't there. All of this is level relative of course.

Agreed, but he has moments when he gets it workable and moments when it is not. But when he loses to these up and comers, it reminds me that his game is just wrong. In fact to me, how he plays against them speaks more loudly than how he does against the top A-players.

Dima seems to lose these Chinese up and comers. For me this is the biggest match of the year for me to believe he is fundamentally sound again.

Looks like Lin Yun Ju has the whole Chinese Taipei team inspired for a chance at a medal next year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81rroyE6UP4

He is playing many more spin oriented forehands. Much better overall approach to the ball. On one serve return (3-7 in game 6), he went for his old forehand, missed long and was annoyed. Kurashima had to calm him down. He needs to forget that forehand. Even on third ball he hit one down the...

I didn't watch the prior point because of bandwidth issues at the time but I guess it was probably just something he needed to address immediately.

That German National Team practice session is over. Now Harimoto gets to play another lefty with a vicious forehand and a slightly more spinny backhand.

Is Filus really a defender? What is the point in being a defender if you can't even bring back the first attack consistently?

Depends in what you mean. Until this year, she was a foreigner by ITTF rules and was only Olympics eligible. Now she is eligible for all events and will be featured more across the tour. She is also only about 26 and a lefty, so she doesn't have to do anything special. But she has been the...