Amazing Serves

NL, you are right, maybe I am too dense to pick up on the dry satire. Apologies if so.

Baal said:

Very Swedish point of view but a pretty good list. I would have put Ma Lin higher maybe. As for Waldner, there was so much more that he was doing besides just hiding the serve.

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Someone posted on mytt that CNT coaches said there were techniques for making the ball trajectory look similar to that for a different spin and that Waldner and Guoliang did this extremely well.

As crazy as this sounds, this gives some insight into what roundrobin once said that a player who played Liu Guoliang said that his serves came with all the wrong spins.

Baal said:

As for Waldner, there was so much more that he was doing besides just hiding the serve.

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Yeah, thats what I was hoping to see a collection of clips of.. returns flying of like rockets.. such an amazing old windows 2000 server...

stao said:

IMHO is totally impossible that Zhang did not hit the ball.
The ball totally looses its momentum after Zhangs contact and thus returns to the net.
The serve is way too fast for the spin to have a chance to return inverse the ball direction.
Only slow serves with much backspin can go back to the net.

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the serve was sideunderspin, not pure back spin. zhangs swing is not same with the trajectory of the ball if we suppose ZJK actually whiffed or hit it. anyway its kinda pointless!

guybr50 said:

I myself ran into one of MA LIN legendary ghost serves which im not sure if Jike had a touch on it or did he missed it...

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stao said:

IMHO is totally impossible that Zhang did not hit the ball.
The ball totally looses its momentum after Zhangs contact and thus returns to the net.
The serve is way too fast for the spin to have a chance to return inverse the ball direction.
Only slow serves with much backspin can go back to the net.

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Liten said:

Im not sure, but in my mind Ma Lin can make any ball look like a yoyo!

Edit: Looking at the slowmo the ball may just have got some air trailing after the bat slowing it down... any contact at all at that speed should have sent that ball flying...

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Zhang Jike brushes, but brushes so lightly that he barely touches the ball.

If you watch closely, from the slow motion angle, the ball passes the end-line and takes a sharp turn in the other direction in mid-air that looks almost like a V. The first bounce after the contact with ZJK's racket is on the top of the edge of the table. Zhang Jike misses good contact but he brushes the ball so delicately (not his intention) that it changes the flight of the ball. There is no way a serve can pass the end-line by 3-5 inches, and just turn around and go the other way at that sharp an angle in mid-air. If they had a camera angle where you could see ZJK's bat face, everyone would be able to see clearly that his racket just barely grazes the ball. But you can still see this: where the ball changes directions, the ball his hidden by ZJK's racket as it swipes past the ball. The change of directions looks very different than those short slow serves that change directions on the bounce. And most of those short serves bounce several times before changing directions. Also note, in the video where Ma Lin is practicing serves and you can see the ball changes directions, the change of directions happens on contact with the table. The contact with the table is how the spin causes the change in direction. They could not change directions in mid-air after the end-line.

This does not take away from the fact that Ma Lin's serve was great and had enough spin to cause Zhang Jike mishit and miss the contact he wanted and barely touch the ball.

I have actually done this myself where I brushed but misjudged where the ball was on a long heavy serve and had pretty much the same result.

Just watch the video again and freeze the frame just after the ball passes the end-line and then watch the angle it changes directions at. You can see it. The contact is there. It is just too light to make a shot. And because of the camera angle, the contact is blocked. But you can see that where the ball changes directions is when the ball is hidden by the racket swiping past it.

Carl using perfectly sane and sound logic to analyze a fabled video where people would agree that Ma Lin used magnets to make the ball boomerang if it could prove that ZJK didn't touch the ball and Ma Lin is a special server...

Who do you think you are convincing anyways other than the people of sound mind who already agree with you? Good luck with that!

NextLevel said:

Carl using perfectly sane and sound logic to analyze a fabled video where people would agree that Ma Lin used magnets to make the ball boomerang if it could prove that ZJK didn't touch the ball and Ma Lin is a special server...

Who do you think you are convincing anyways other than the people of sound mind who already agree with you? Good luck with that!

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Well, you know, when I make an amazing, fast, long serve that flies past the end-line and then boomerangs in mid-air, doing a 175 degree turn in the air, I just want to keep secret how I got that skill: hint, it requires the secret handshake and special Ma Lin version H3 National Rubbers boosted with sunflower oil by Ma Lin himself. But if I tell anyone about it, the goon squad will be after me for sure.

Just you wait. Keep this up and ill be putting prefixes before your name in notime! Anyone can see zjk clearly put's the same amount of spin on the ball as the small dark haird ping pong robot on the other side of the table did.

Stupid brush hit..

Well Waldner's serves were still formidable after the hidden serve ban. Check out this gif. In slow motion you can see the entire motion. How would you like to receive that?

http://gfycat.com/ArtisticHarmfulInvisiblerail#

I'm asking the pros on the forum if they read this thread: What do You think„ who has the strongest serve game S.

ajtatosmano2 said:

I'm asking the pros on the forum if they read this thread: What do You think„ who has the strongest serve game S.

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Maharu Yoshimura of course.

UpSideDownCarl said:

Zhang Jike brushes, but brushes so lightly that he barely touches the ball.

If you watch closely, from the slow motion angle, the ball passes the end-line and takes a sharp turn in the other direction in mid-air that looks almost like a V. The first bounce after the contact with ZJK's racket is on the top of the edge of the table. Zhang Jike misses good contact but he brushes the ball so delicately (not his intention) that it changes the flight of the ball. There is no way a serve can pass the end-line by 3-5 inches, and just turn around and go the other way at that sharp an angle in mid-air. If they had a camera angle where you could see ZJK's bat face, everyone would be able to see clearly that his racket just barely grazes the ball. But you can still see this: where the ball changes directions, the ball his hidden by ZJK's racket as it swipes past the ball. The change of directions looks very different than those short slow serves that change directions on the bounce. And most of those short serves bounce several times before changing directions. Also note, in the video where Ma Lin is practicing serves and you can see the ball changes directions, the change of directions happens on contact with the table. The contact with the table is how the spin causes the change in direction. They could not change directions in mid-air after the end-line.

This does not take away from the fact that Ma Lin's serve was great and had enough spin to cause Zhang Jike mishit and miss the contact he wanted and barely touch the ball.

I have actually done this myself where I brushed but misjudged where the ball was on a long heavy serve and had pretty much the same result.

Just watch the video again and freeze the frame just after the ball passes the end-line and then watch the angle it changes directions at. You can see it. The contact is there. It is just too light to make a shot. And because of the camera angle, the contact is blocked. But you can see that where the ball changes directions is when the ball is hidden by the racket swiping past it.

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ahahah sorry i watched the video like a zillion times , years before and still nothing can 100 % persuade me that zhang touched it. I cant find the post that was a real battle between users who believed it didnt touch and uses who believe it did. Even at 0.25 speed and after downloading and watching the video in slow mo, I still cant see any whiff or touch.

Strictly from the physics point of view, both theories can be correct. I dont want to sound like mr smartass here , but one of the most surprising arguements that Team "he touched it" says is that the curl of the ball after the 3rd bounce is unreal, to me it seems perfectly natural especially with a server named ma lin, so I dont now maybe my eyes fool me or my judgment is not so good

Anyway I still find this debate pretty funny, when the video was first uploaded I remembered wasting maybe half my practice arguiing with a team mate like "it didnt touch because blablabla" "it touched are you blind? because blablabla"

Maybe we should recover the thread or a start a new one


p.s. I will only be convinced if ma lin appears in the forum and reveals the truth

NextLevel said:

Someone posted on mytt that CNT coaches said there were techniques for making the ball trajectory look similar to that for a different spin and that Waldner and Guoliang did this extremely well.

As crazy as this sounds, this gives some insight into what roundrobin once said that a player who played Liu Guoliang said that his serves came with all the wrong spins.

Click to expand...

go @ 0:30 first serve is sidetopspin and 2nd serve is sideunderspin but the trajectory and landing spots of the ball are almost identical. the underspin serve is clearly lower but its much easier to see the difference on video than in a match situation

Mizutani can also do this effect with different spins but almost same trajectory this video at 1:16 is a good example

Liten said:

Im not sure, but in my mind Ma Lin can make any ball look like a yoyo!

Edit: Looking at the slowmo the ball may just have got some air trailing after the bat slowing it down... any contact at all at that speed should have sent that ball flying...



// 0 rate with all the pro advice!

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Yea the air "pushing" the ball maybe a good explanation of what really happened, Zhang's explosive motion would have sent the ball faster and into the net or out on the left side of the table

TTFrenzy said:

go @ 0:30 first serve is sidetopspin and 2nd serve is sideunderspin but the trajectory and landing spots of the ball are almost identical. the underspin serve is clearly lower but its much easier to see the difference on video than in a match situation

Mizutani can also do this effect with different spins but almost same trajectory this video at 1:16 is a good example

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I also love Waldner's fakes at the end of the motion.

I am going to go watch some more videos of Mitzutani to watch his serve in real matches.

TTFrenzy said:

p.s. I will only be convinced if ma lin appears in the forum and reveals the truth

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Too funny. You may need Zhang Jike there more than Ma Lin. But why not go for both.

All good. I still have no intention of revealing how I get serves to make 90 and 180 degree turns in mid air after they've past the end-line.


Sent from MountOlympus via Hermes'Caduceus

NL and company, this corkscrew serve that Michael Landers taught me, one of the coolest parts of that serve is, the bounce clearly shows topspin and kicks like topspin. But if you know how to return the top/sidespin serve it looks like and get on the outside of the sidespin, the ball is heavy backspin because it is not a regular sidespin.

The funniest part about that serve, when I give it to someone who isn't at as high a level and does the wrong thing for what the serve looks like, they return it. Then I give it to a higher level player and they read and they try and return based on what the motion and the bounce looks like, they make contact with the outside of the spin as though it is top/side and the ball goes straight down. Funny.

I can't do it well enough. But when Mike does it, that is a pretty crazy serve. I will keep working on it. Corkscrew.


Sent from MountOlympus via Hermes'Caduceus

UpSideDownCarl said:

Well, you know, when I make an amazing, fast, long serve that flies past the end-line and then boomerangs in mid-air, doing a 175 degree turn in the air, I just want to keep secret how I got that skill: hint, it requires the secret handshake and special Ma Lin version H3 National Rubbers boosted with sunflower oil by Ma Lin himself. But if I tell anyone about it, the goon squad will be after me for sure.

Click to expand...

...and a several Secret Service Communications Experts in Ur corner working for you on the sly only for Chicken and Beer... and the hope of seeing Seo Hyo Won in action one day live.

Well, I think I know why there is such a debate over the Ma Lin serve. I think that ZJK did not touch the ball. However, the wind that he generated from his topspin motion also had an effect on the ball.

To end the debate (and trying to get the opportunity to call Carl stupid) I tried blowing out a candle with a close to stright upward "brush stroke" yesterday, making air trail the bat and thus blowing the flame out.
Guess what, I faild.


Naah just kidding.
If the spin on the ball is heavy, like Ma's spin, even the air trailing behind the bat can put some amount of spin back on the ball, thus keeping it on tr table. But, as your not engineers, rocket sciantologist or ZJK! How could you have known...

Brush stroke.. Prfffft.. Stupid Carl..


;D