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Conic! But it’s rare. OSP has them, though. If not conic: flared, but straight works well too — all depending on the balance of the blade with rubbers on it.

We've got a a promising young player at the club with a fantastic technique and feel for the ball. He can do anything with anything, and he likes to experiment. One of the things he likes to try is penhold play, and he's held a Jpen blade once. These things are very uncommon over here...

Letting go and moving on is much harder than it sounds. That is where positive visualization helps. It also helps to actually replay part of the exchange in shadow moves, which is what a lot of top player do. Upon misses they apparently consider unnecessary, you often see a moment of focus...

Wiggle isn't a bad find, but I think it's a corkscrew variation. What he does, is putting reverse corkscrew spin on the ball by a swift flick of the wrist and disguising it by opposing arm gestures. At a much, much lower level I once faced an opponent with very limited abilities — but the one...

So the China Open isn't a major event? I have learned something today. :-)

So the China Open isn't a major event? I have learned something today. :-)

I don’t. Nothing on Timo and Dima, but I don’t see them eclipsing the CNT. They are not that young, and the gap behind them seems substantial to me. The recent wins do not, to me, rekindle the memory of the Swedes halfway the eighties, determined and seemingly destined to dominate. For a while.

Showing absolute grace, even in the face of defeat. Great sportsmanship indeed, very inspiring.

Her level is quite OK, even if stance could be improved upon. Me, I just noted the (to me) strange rhythm in the free arm movement; at my club, some players also have that. These videos are invigorating. Good play, not so good play, what I see first and foremost is the joy of it. I like that...

Acknowledged! Except that all that pressure stuff still holds. Did ML buckle under it?

Dragon slayed, indeed. Great win for TB, ultra high level. Yet my heart bleeds for the dragon, even while filled with joy for Timo.

Amazing winning streaks by first TB, coming from 2-4 to 10-4, then ML, going from 10-4 to 9-10. And then TB seals the game. World class play.

I don’t think so. At some level, it’s highly important for Ma Long to win. He is untouchable while on top, but I don’t think the loss of face China was perceived to suffer when Dima took the China Open title in an all-foreign final after the CNT top 3 forfeited has been forgotten. The one...

I'm kinda sorta hoping for a Shiba-Gauzy rematch, and am wondering if they'll shake hands.

Perhaps they're choosing depth over low net clearance, even at lower velocity.

That is a great post, and I the referenced publications struck a chord with me. I used to choke pretty badly when young, less so now, and the key (to me) was, quoting TTTom's article: "[…] to re-evaluate my goals. I wanted to judge my performance on whether I played well. Winning or losing was...

I only want Butterfly Covfefe if it plays bigly.

Tantalising! I haven't tried the Rossi Emotion blade, liked quite a few other Joola blades though. I've been playing for 40+ years as well, but with a rather long leave of absence leaving me out of touch with basically everything that happened between 1985 and 2015, materialwise. So the...

Thing about the futures is, it's hard to know. Harimoto still has some growth spurts ahead. He will gain weight, length, strength; as a result of that, his basic motorics will change, his agility will change. Changing the direction/speed of 1 pound of matter is a different thing from moving 1...

The most memorable match, for me, in 2017 sofar is the match that did not take place at the China Open, when Ma Long remained absent in a show of loyalty to the coaches, protesting the abusive powerplays that took place before that. Fan Zhendong and Xu Xin following suit added to the impact...