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the scary part is that he was doing unreturnable loopkills off half long serves, high quality deep spinny pushes, flicks, chiquitas which most top players would have use slow spinny loops on. It is not just about opponents misreading the serve. I thought both LSD and WCQ received his serve well...

Hugo used to struggle against Harimoto precisely because he was just being blocked down and wasn't fast enough to sustain his attack. The difference this time of course is because of short game improvements and increased accuracy from his end. With such immense quality and consistency in the 1st...

Hugo's problem is if someone manages to defend his 1st attack, or attacks first, he won't be in a good position because he has big strokes and thus much slower recovery and also poorer defence. But those big strokes are also why he is so dangerous too so it is a tough balance. Imo he is on the...

Yep, Hugo's high toss heavy pure underspin serve is no joke - it is extremely spinny and also he has a no spin variant which looks very similar. He also serves the sideunder/sidetop with the same high toss. But he was mainly serving heavy pure underspin/no spin for short serves during the World...

Yep. A lot of LSD's weaker "safe" opening loops and chiquitas just got blasted with no mercy by Hugo. Reminded me of Ryu Seung Min blasting Wang Hao's safe opening loops and chiquitas in 2004 Athens. Worse, those Hugo loopkills were outright unblockable.

The genius in the 2nd set, was that Hugo started to serve long with very high quality (deep, fast, well placed, spinny, lots of spin variation) This really threw a spanner in the LSD chiquita plan and forced him to push, which allowed Hugo to get the 1st topspin with more quality. Even when LSD...

Only if Ma Long was training systematically, then yes. But not the Ma Long these days. Fan Zhendong would also be able to do it if he was systematically training instead of being a wannabe celebrity. CNT is quite vulnerable without Ma Long and Fan Zhendong. The new gen skills just aren't that...

WCQ has better short game which is why he fared better than LSD, but WCQ relied way too much on illegal serves at crucial moments - that shielded a lot of his weaknesses in topspin defence and rallying unlike FZD who worked extremely hard on those (since he didn't rely on illegal serves)

I thought LSD would have better defence, but no, Hugo's loopkills just ripped a hole in his defence. It is just way too hot to handle. The way he was hitting today was out of the world. LSD couldn't shutdown Hugo's game because he doesn't have the short push capabilities to do so. Players like...

Ma Long is about to retire anyways. He probably would have struggled if Hugo was hitting hard with accuracy like today. Remember Ma Long lost to similar hard hitters Patrick Franziska and Lee Sang Su.

No one on the CNT hits as hard as Hugo. The only solution is more short game control training to shutdown the 1st attack completely. But none of the youngsters can short push as well as Ma Long or even ZJK.

Those BH and FH loopkills were just insane. I think these have to be the highest quality loopkills since speed glue got banned. Seriously some of them look as powerful as Ryu Seung Min's FH in Athens 2004. And the bonus was that he wasn't missing much when loopkilling at these kinds of quality...

Hugo playing like a two wing Ryu Seung Min now! Speed and topspin rally capabilities don't matter if you can just kill the opponent with your loops that are undefendable.

Wow Hugo actually executing on the strategy of short game control + big af 1st attack to prevent any sort of counter.

This is one of my fav BH serves to loop against. Against FH pendulum you need to BH loop by going along with the sidespin. Incoming ball is spinning clockwise (from your perspective), you should ride and add to the clockwise spin. For under vs top adjustment it is the same like other loops. Make...

Pretty hard because LSD has much better defence than WCQ. But if LSD cannot deal with the quality of Hugo's 1st attack he is in a bit of trouble.

LSD has way too good of a block and countering game that will neutralise a bigger percentage of Hugo's attacks than what he likes. Also because LSD has smaller and faster strokes than Hugo, it is pretty difficult for Hugo to outrally LSD in fast close table topspin battle imo. LSD will win...

Spot on for WCQ. Also he relied too much on his hidden serve + 3rd ball for his entire career so he wasn't as well trained or experienced in the rally stage as compared to someone like FZD. We are also not sure who will be the other player, LJK or LSD. Like what you mentioned, Hugo would much...

Yep - LSD is faster but Hugo much more powerful. If Hugo challenges the LSD hook serve this could be very interesting!

Yes but his defence still sucks...