Difference between a 2100 and a professional?

I don't see him trying that much harder. I see the opponent being more powerful and consistent, the latter especially.

Here is the match vs Boll. One of a few.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CixobZtMLIM

Brian Pace is inconsistent against the ball Crisan is feeding him. I don't think that is a sign of Crisan's effort level but that is okay. I used to get that kind of comment from lower rated players when I was a blocker. They would ask why I wasn't attacking and wanted me to give them my best game. I told them that my best game is them attacking hard and making me look better as a counter hitter and blocker.

I thought that Crisan had retired?
Or maybe the French club offered him a deal that he could not refuse. The match against Freitas shows a Crisan way out of form. So maybe he has not been training or he misses CCY.
Don't misunderstand the match against Pace. He had a tactic to make life difficult for Brian without trying to emulate Malong. That's what professionals do. They win matches not try to smash every opponent to bits. Whether it's game 5 to a 2600 opponent or game 9 to a 2100 player, they don't care. A win is a win.

Tinykin said:

The main difference is that a 2600 player is a dedicated TT player. An established 2100 player is probably someone who plays TT as a pastime in priority as, job>family>hobbies/sports>TT.
At least that's the priority list of most players, I think.

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That's one thing for sure, but there is a lot more to it than that.

At one point we used to have a pretty good 4-start USATT tournament in my city, and we would usually raise some funds to pay the expenses of a world top 100 player to come play. One year I recall like it was yestereday that Thomas Keinath was our guy (because I contributed quite a bit, I got to hit with him for about 30 minutes, so that was really cool). Thomas was somewhere in the world mid 70s at the time. He won the tournament, beat Eugene Wang in the final (and actually had to work at it for that particular match).

But against everyone else, including a bunch of people who at the time were among the best North American players), it was one annihilation after another. It's not like the North Americans looked amateurish or completely any able to hit shots (like it would if most of us were up against a professional). It included people who had played in many international events, like Peter Paul Pradeeban, one of the best North American players of his era. But against all those guys, Keinath won every game, usually at about 11-5 or 11-6 and you could just tell that Keinath felt no pressure in a match against anyone until he played Eugene in the final. He was not visibly "goofing around" and he was respectful of his opponents. And yet, it looked like he was moving in slow motion and simply didn't care when he missed. It was a bit like some of these videos except the players Thomas was destroying were a lot better than Brian Pace or Wally Green.

The contrast when he played Eugene was marked. Then you could see some intensity. Thomas won that final but it was a good match. I think this was probably around 2008, because I remember watching Eugene glue up right before the match.

Execution, confidence and reliability. When a professional player executes a serve or a stroke in a match the odds of it being reliable, accurate and high quality are bigger than a 2100 player. Most professionals are much more athletic than 2100 players, have undergone much more intense training and developed a faster more forehand oriented game. They will commit to their game plans without any hesitation and they can usually predict highly probably responses to their actions in matches which allows them to prepare even faster.

In matches they also have more experience, a great knowledge of how to beat players due to coming from highly competitive environments and also a wider range of tactics along with the ability to constantly adapt during a match. I've played players between 2200 and 2300 before and hardly broken a sweat just because they couldn't receive my serve well, similarly I've been decimated by 2600 and 2700 players. They just have a way of putting all the pressure on you, you are the one who has to keep trying different tactics, you are the one who has to take all the risks to win points, the odds are not in your favour from the start.

songdavid98 said:

Kudos to sticking to the thread.

So you mean that they are more familiar with probable shot combinations and they force you to play their game, due to experience.

So I've mixed up adaptability with familiarity.

Do you mean that their familiarity with their game and how effectively they "force" their game on you make them better players? (Sort of?)

Obviously, there are many factors, but this seems to be a big one.

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Yes, they know the likely patterns that is big, but I would also add that on top of that they see trajectories really early (which I think may be related to starting the sport very early in life). So it is really hard to make them feel pressure, so then lower level players have to try to hit stronger, more risky shots; to try to play over their own heads and nearly always they can't sustain it and get erratic.

That plus everything Matt said.

songdavid98 said:

Kudos to sticking to the thread.

So you mean that they are more familiar with probable shot combinations and they force you to play their game, due to experience.

So I've mixed up adaptability with familiarity.

Do you mean that their familiarity with their game and how effectively they "force" their game on you make them better players? (Sort of?)

Obviously, there are many factors, but this seems to be a big one.

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They play the probabilities, when they serve against lower level players usually they can estimate a high probability of a certain return, mainly because lower players won't find it easy to return their serves any other way unless they have ridiculously good serve receive. They are prepared for the most likely outcomes of everything they do in a match and lower level players usually struggle to play outside of those expectations. That means they are usually waiting for you to do exactly what they want you to do. So yes familiarity and probability are key factors.

They are in control of how the game plays out. The biggest feeling for a player 2100 to 2200 against a professional let's say 2500 and up is that they are not in control of how the game is playing out. Sometimes you even feel completely useless. Do you ever play them and ask yourself how the hell am I supposed to win, this guy seems to have an answer for everything?

You need to be able to make people play to your strengths a high percentage of the time during a match, and if you can execute follow ups on your base tactics then it will help you start getting in control of points in games. Then you just need to start improving your setups (serves and receives, placements/angles and spin) in the game. Points need to be carefully planned out which most lower level players neglect to do.

Lots of great posts really interesting topic when you take a moment to actually think what are pros 'actually' doing differently. Why is my name always poping up in these topics to haha! Me and Der will attend a tournament soon to rip it up! Haha joking! Well that would be fun!

The problem I have is I stopped playing competitively in 2009. From 2005 and 2009 I played full time and was sharp, saw the ball early and moved well. Now (7 years later) I am like a fish out of water now! In the training environment like many have said I know where the ball is coming so things look pretty good. From what I have seen in the US Ratings I would say anyone with a rating of 2400-2500 and whos playing a good amount of TT I will struggle against. If i trained for a week or so beforehand I would have a much greater chance, thing is I simply don't train anymore.

This leads me to something similar to what @Tinykin has already said. Players who are rated 2700 or above are playing a few days a week maintaining their skills or most likely improving them with coaching feedback and all the rest of it. Players who are 2400 and below have probably less hours in their belt and their training envirnoment is probably not as high quality. These players in the 2700 bracket and above practice against players of that level so they get use to that quality of ball, spin and speed. 'You become your environment' and adapt.

Of course the question is what are players doing at this level. I think the number 1 assest you develop from this practice is total ball control. Handling spin and reading the game this is why it looks so easy for top players to defeat us. They pick on opponents weaknesses quicker and natually pressure their opponent. Its no different to when we play a beginner. We can move them around, our quality of ball is greater which puts them on a constant pressure.

Matt has also spoke about match experience. This is essiential also. Top players or players 2700+ are most likely playing in top divisions or leagues and developing, adjusting and adapting their skills in a competitive environmemt. I have an example of this myself, I use to play in the Belgium league. My first season I struggled so much to even get a win, the opponents seemed faster then me, more spin and were just in more control. However after playing through it for a season I started to adjust to this level of play and in my second season my level and performance and results were far greater.

Wonderful words from Dan the Man !

IMO, once you break 2000 or so as an adult or if you trained properly as kid, everything is just the same, people just do it tighter, better and faster and with more sequences and backup. And people who start younger have more stuff built into their brain to process the ball trajectory etc. Like Dan said, the same way when I serve a 1200 player, I know what will usually happen is the same way when 2500 player serves to me, they know what will usually happen. And as you play faster players and get exposed to higher quality balls, your brain processes things faster. I play those guys and feel hopeless, but I don't play them and have no clue what is going on anymore - I just can't hang with the speed at which things are happening or have the training to make the right play.

People underestimate the importance of hours of training from the neural perspective - they can sometimes see the fitness, but they underestimate the learning from anticipation and just feeling the ball over and over again. IF you ever train for a week with a better player, you just end up realizing that everyone you used to play looks very slow. And it's not that they are slower, it's just that your brain is processing stuff so much faster that you now think they are slow.

That's why 80 year olds can compete well in this sport - you can't get all that neural processing without putting in the hours.

NEURAL PROCESSING: great post NextLevel.

Now we know why NextLevel is spending so much time playing Brett Clarke's TTEdge video game when he is supposed to be writing on the forum.


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NextLevel training ...

UpSideDownCarl said:

NEURAL PROCESSING: great post NextLevel.

Now we know why NextLevel is spending so much time playing Brett Clarke's TTEdge video game when he is supposed to be writing on the forum.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

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NextLevel said:

I play those guys and feel hopeless, but I don't play them and have no clue what is going on anymore - I just can't hang with the speed at which things are happening or have the training to make the right play.

People underestimate the importance of hours of training from the neural perspective - they can sometimes see the fitness, but they underestimate the learning from anticipation and just feeling the ball over and over again.

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This is true, kind of what I meant to say. Hanging with the speed is tough. And the speed does not bother them, and there is a great deal of sensorimotor adaptation that these really good players have. Consequently the 2100 just can't pressure the 2500 player very often.

Somebody pasted a video of this over 50 guy from Taiwan over at MyTT. He is really really really good. The guy has not got the fitness of a professional player anymore. But check out his anticipation! Look at the insane blocks he makes with no effort, no stress, and plenty of time to spare. Look how he just owns his opponent off his own serve (he knows that the return is likely to be), and how his timing is just spot on. His feel, his ability to misdirect. He is even better than he looks, because I guarantee from watching him that if you are on the other side of the table, you have no idea where he is going to hit the ball. This guy has played so long, the sport has slowed down for him a lot.

Look how he just owns his opponent off his own serve

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He hides the serve with his free hand. Look at 0:29, the contact is completely behind the hand, and the camera captures it perfectly from the POV of the receiver.

We have somebody similar in our area. He has taken the TaiChi style to the next level. He plays JPEN too, stands with the right leg in front in the middle of the table, blocks down most loops and even chop blocks them so that they become almost like slow pushes. He can generate enormous amount of spins with apparently small effort and none of the balls come back with the same spin. Most of his opponents would miss their shots by small margins and keep thinking that its their fault ...

If I am able to make a video of him , I can post here with his permission.

Good catch !! May be he is not aware of it ... just cutting him some slack ..

Ilia Minkin said:

He hides the serve with his free hand. Look at 0:29, the contact is completely behind the hand, and the camera captures it perfectly from the POV of the receiver.

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Actually, there is a lower level of this guy who lives in my town; lefty penholder, except uses short pips. He was US Over-50 National Champion about 10 years ago or thereabouts, was about 2280 then (definitely not as good as this guy). He is my worst table tennis nightmare. I rarely take games from him (I haven't played him in a few years, but I have no reason to think this would have changed). I once had match point on him at 10-6 in the final game. Naturally I lost.