Yuya Oshima - Future of japanese table tennis?

IMHO, Mizutani does win a lot of points while staying close to the table, especially against equally good opponents but we see him lobbing so much because his defence is the best in the world. He just keeps a point alive that most players would have already lost. Against Zhang Jike for example in the WTTC, he kept himself close to the table for the first 4 sets but his close to the table game is not as good as Zhang Jike's.

Here's another example of a match against Ovtcharov. He's able to control the table against him and mostly stays there.

The way I see it is this - Mizutani's relies more on away from the table defense than other top players and is sometimes seduced by playing it as a match strategy because it can win him points against players who are inconsistent or who don't practice sufficiently against it. In fact, one of the big things in the past year or two was an attempt by his coaches to make him less reliant on this defense even when playing the Chinese. But as one of my friends said, when you are the best in the world at something and can usually win with it, it is hard to stop doing it.

That said, the real reason why Mizutani can't consistently compete with the Chinese is that his power level is too low to fight it out in the close to mid distance battle if he can't consistently win the serve and receive battle. It shows up most glaringly against Joo Se Hyuk (CCY and Koki Niwa have similar problems vs. the Chinese as well).

lycaon said:

I'm not sure if you understood what I meant but what i meant is he prefers playing back looping etc but he has a habit of just stepping back and blocking (as in he is clearly in control of the point with a few slow loops and then suddenly he stops attacking and steps back) if that makes any seense

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Thats so true, in fact many players strugggle to develop when it comes to "correcting" their natural tendencies which are either a gift or a "curse".

Waldner and guoliang are naturally "creative" from day 1 and I believe this is something you are born with. Of course training is important, you need to find your "Talent" explore it and make it even more useful. Waldner for example was asked many times about his "natural feel for the ball" but he always mentioned that he experimented a lot on different kind of shots. Same thing for LGL, Kong Linghui Persson Primorac & wang liqin for example are rally players, their serves are not anything special

I agree taht mizutani has a natural tendency to fall back and play safe even when he plays close to the table. He has improve alot in the past 2 years but its too late now. Mizutani was considered a huge talent 7-8 years ago in OG 2008 but started improving significantly after 2013. I believe the japanese training methods are focusing too much on consistency of shots and not explosiveness

Oshima on the other hand and morizono are very fierce, they may not be as consistent as mizutani in their games, but I dont think mizutani & kishikawa or niwa for example would have ever managed to go 3-3 and 10-8 up against a to chinese pair like ZJK and XX

I'd agree with ttfrenzy that Mizutani and Kishikawa did not have any success against the top Chinese players.

However, Koki Niwa has done better than many others by beating Xu Xin in the GAC Group 2015 Asian Cup, and Ma Long in the 2012 Asian Olympic Qualification Tournament.