Post 40+, the highway to Quadri Aruna?

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Hi TTD. Watching the match between Boll and Aruna and several other matches of African players, it got me thinking. This tournament, saw many African players such as Aruna playing incredibly well and could par with the world elite. However, while watching it, it feels like they are much technically inferior to that world elite, their shots are very basic, they seem clumsy at times, but they make it up with great athleticism. I feel like before 40+ there were not many African players, let alone those who won any matches at all and now, with the new plastic ball, less technique is required from them and their unique athletic style has puzzled the minds of many of the world's elite.

Also, the Celluloid ball produces much more spin than the current 40+ plastic ball, Aruna would have not been able to counter against Timos spin during the celluloid ball era like he did yesterday in Rio.

Do you agree? Intersted in your thoughts.
 
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Yes Aruna is in very good shape. But OG are not first competition with plastic ball. Since 2014, world championship, world cup and opens were played with plastic ball.

Aruna is a good player, able to huge performances with celluloid or plastic.
 
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Hi TTD. Watching the match between Boll and Aruna and several other matches of African players, it got me thinking. This tournament, saw many African players such as Aruna playing incredibly well and could par with the world elite. However, while watching it, it feels like they are much technically inferior to that world elite, their shots are very basic, they seem clumsy at times, but they make it up with great athleticism. I feel like before 40+ there were not many African players, let alone those who won any matches at all and now, with the new plastic ball, less technique is required from them and their unique athletic style has puzzled the minds of many of the world's elite.

Also, the Celluloid ball produces much more spin than the current 40+ plastic ball, Aruna would have not been able to counter against Timos spin during the celluloid ball era like he did yesterday in Rio.

Do you agree? Intersted in your thoughts.

aruna's attitude is really great, attack hard no matter what, timo actually read him well but failed to execute he simply was not there. he got frustrated didnt play with clear mind and when he did it was too late, a few lucky balls from aruna in the 6th set, some unforced errors by timo and aruna won with some smart tactics in the closing points.

ma long refuted quadri's attacks by standing a bit further away from the table when the point was transitioned to a rally which is also his style, boll plays closer to the table but stubbornly maybe, he thought he can countertopspin aruna's rockets and miss after miss the game was almost over in 3-0. even zhang jike had problems doing that in 2014 and won points against aruna simply by blocking.

Aruna's FH is very powerful dont let the weird technique fool you, his recovery is bad on the elite level because of the big unbalanced stroke, sometimes he can topspin hard for a 2nd time due to his great physicality but almost never a 3rd time, especially when the topspin rally changes tempo or placement. chuang chih yuan and boll tried to outpower him with same placements over and over and failed really hard, probably some big ego issues there if you ask me

For me I dont think that the 40 + has anything to do with it, yes boll's topspins would be much better, but same goes for aruna's spin/speed which would be greater

On the contrary, with a bigger ball it is required better technique in overall ability of a stroke because rallies are definitely getting longer. Aruna would be a beast in the era of hidden serves, deception serve followed by hard FH and who cares about technique

I was quite confident that boll would make a comeback because he won his 2 sets quite strong and figured out how to play quadri, but I got to give it to aruna with his smart risky tactics in the end of the 6th game

p.s. also bear in mind that boll has deuced 2 times in 2 consecutive sets being down 10-5 and 10-7 but aruna performed really well in the crucial points. I cant tell if timo underestimated him but for sure he didnt assess the situation well especially in the opening games. after he read the game it was too late
 
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And people said I was being racist...

I have heard this arguments on mytt as well. People trying to rationalize why Aruna is beating Boll and come up with all kinds of excuses.

People also overthink TT technique sometimes. There is nothing inherently wrong with Aruna's technique. Recovery is forced upon you by the quality of the opposition you play. Aruna is not used to playing against the amount of power and spin he generates. Ma Long plays against that level of power and spin all the time when he hits with Fan Zhendong or Xu Xin. So he knows how to control that ball. If you noticed, Aruna just had issues controlling the ball of Ma Long, forget anything about his forehand or backhand technique. Koki Niwa had similar problems playing against Zhang Jike. It was clear that neither Niwa nor Aruna was used to playing against that spin level.
 
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Hi TTD. Watching the match between Boll and Aruna and several other matches of African players, it got me thinking. This tournament, saw many African players such as Aruna playing incredibly well and could par with the world elite. However, while watching it, it feels like they are much technically inferior to that world elite, their shots are very basic, they seem clumsy at times, but they make it up with great athleticism. I feel like before 40+ there were not many African players, let alone those who won any matches at all and now, with the new plastic ball, less technique is required from them and their unique athletic style has puzzled the minds of many of the world's elite.

Also, the Celluloid ball produces much more spin than the current 40+ plastic ball, Aruna would have not been able to counter against Timos spin during the celluloid ball era like he did yesterday in Rio.

Do you agree? Intersted in your thoughts.

You only have one post, and frankly it is not the best one.
 
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And people said I was being racist...

I have heard this arguments on mytt as well. People trying to rationalize why Aruna is beating Boll and come up with all kinds of excuses.

People also overthink TT technique sometimes. There is nothing inherently wrong with Aruna's technique. Recovery is forced upon you by the quality of the opposition you play. Aruna is not used to playing against the amount of power and spin he generates. Ma Long plays against that level of power and spin all the time when he hits with Fan Zhendong or Xu Xin. So he knows how to control that ball. If you noticed, Aruna just had issues controlling the ball of Ma Long, forget anything about his forehand or backhand technique. Koki Niwa had similar problems playing against Zhang Jike. It was clear that neither Niwa nor Aruna was used to playing against that spin level.

Whether is forced upon you or not which is 80 % of the times true, its also a matter of philosophy, sometimes the ball will come awkward and high yet aruna still has trouble to get to a relatively easy ball and miss. that is what recover is all about your first shot must be linked to the 2nd one

Now dont get me wrong, its about philosophy im not saying aruna's style is BAD but its definitely not consistent. For me i dont think he had issues controlling, he served many times in ma longs body in purpose and went for BH kill, most of the times he missed (probably stepping on the gas too much with these BH punches) because he knew if the block is good and consistent then ML will start topspins all table and he had no chance, aruna's tactics were quite obvious against everyone, finish the point early and take the lead+psychology advantage
 
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For me the only thing that matters is winning, having or finding what it takes to win. There's not only one way to play table tennis or a single eternal universal technique for each shot. Training, technique, rules are ever-changing and players need to adjust.
If Aruna was "much technically inferior" he would have lost. Even if we accept such an assumption for debate's sake, that means he was much better in tactics, physical condition, mental preparation, suiting the match to his advantages.
Almost certainly, table tennis history will record Boll as a greater player than Aruna after the end of both careers, but undoubtedly Aruna is a very good player.
 
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And people said I was being racist...

I have heard this arguments on mytt as well. People trying to rationalize why Aruna is beating Boll and come up with all kinds of excuses.

People also overthink TT technique sometimes. There is nothing inherently wrong with Aruna's technique. Recovery is forced upon you by the quality of the opposition you play. Aruna is not used to playing against the amount of power and spin he generates. Ma Long plays against that level of power and spin all the time when he hits with Fan Zhendong or Xu Xin. So he knows how to control that ball. If you noticed, Aruna just had issues controlling the ball of Ma Long, forget anything about his forehand or backhand technique. Koki Niwa had similar problems playing against Zhang Jike. It was clear that neither Niwa nor Aruna was used to playing against that spin level.

So the only thing Aruna needs is to be used to CNT kind of spin and to their rubbers? I'm sorry but this is a pretty much biased opinion, Boll's kind of spin is not sooo inferior to CNT's and he managed to beat him. But ML is just more powerful, place the ball much better, is much faster and does significantly less unforced errors.

The fact is Aruna's technique is inferior to Boll's or Ma Long's one. But its not racist at all to say that, its the same with let's say Kristian Karlsson.

Don't get me wrong, Aruna's performance was awesome in this tournament and I respect the man.

But Ma Long also pointed out something interesting, the fact that players are not used to him, hope that doesnt makes him racist to your eyes :

As an African player, it's not easy that he made it to the quarter-final stage; he was able to defeat Chuang Chih-Yuan and Timo Boll. His forehand and footwork are great, I think also because he doesnt play much internationally, we are not familiar with his playing style and characteristics, that could have surprised his opponents and they couldn't react and adapt in time". Ma Long.
 
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NDH

says Spin to win!
Perhaps this is more an "Aruna" thing, than an "African" thing.

I agree with a lot of what you have said about his technique being "different" - I wouldn't call it inferior - Inferior techniques don't get to the quarter finals of the Olympics.

Ask yourself this - If Aruna was a Chinese/European/Japanese player - Would these conversations be happening? Or would you simply accept that someone has a different technique, that other people might not be used to (due to not playing as much on tour), and that's where his success came from?

Does Aruna look as polished as Ma Long?

No.....

But does anyone? :)
 
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Of course this conversation would happen, the guy is 40th in the world ranking and you have to admit that his technique, even if effective, is not common. If a european had the same style of play, people would discuss about it either.

But because hes an african we can't say nothing, see how the author got answered lol.
 
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I think the reason why TB lost to Aruna was a bit different. TB was content to push AQ's serve returns slightly long or flip them softly. That behavior is not done by everyone - just by those (like Samsonov) who have confidence in controlling the opponent's 3rd ball. But TB could not control Aruna's 3rd ball. He lost a lot of points that way.

The Chinese won't play AQ this way - they would either use their tacky FH rubber to push short (engaging AQ in the short game where he is weaker) or perform a strong Chiquita BH.
 
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NDH

says Spin to win!
Not at all - I think we should be discussing the effectiveness of his technique.

If you feel it's inferior, then that is entirely your own opinion - No one can stop you from having one :)

My point was more the fact you mentioned about him being "African", and basing your argument on that.

As I said in my previous post - This is an "Aruna" debate, it's irrelevant where he comes from.

If there were many other examples of players from Africa who played the same/had the same success with a different technique, then fair enough.

I personally don't know enough about the other African table tennis players to comment - Do you have any videos of them (playing the same as Aruna?)
 
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Of course this conversation would happen, the guy is 40th in the world ranking and you have to admit that his technique, even if effective, is not common. If a european had the same style of play, people would discuss about it either.

But because hes an african we can't say nothing, see how the author got answered lol.

So how many posts have people opened on Lebesson? Platonov? Or other similarly high level forehands with unique methodology?
 
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I think you confound me with the author, I never talked about africans I stated Ma Long's comment. You can see it on ittf new website.

What I say is that the author was called a racist while he just pointed out the different technique of Aruna, which is pretty indecent in my opinion.
 
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Perhaps this is more an "Aruna" thing, than an "African" thing.

I agree with a lot of what you have said about his technique being "different" - I wouldn't call it inferior - Inferior techniques don't get to the quarter finals of the Olympics.

Ask yourself this - If Aruna was a Chinese/European/Japanese player - Would these conversations be happening? Or would you simply accept that someone has a different technique, that other people might not be used to (due to not playing as much on tour), and that's where his success came from?

Does Aruna look as polished as Ma Long?

No.....

But does anyone? :)


For me its not an issue of country at all . I like the scientific approach of technique in TT and many world star players have "Weird" technique if u judge them that way.

Take crisan for example, crappy footwork, crappy rallying abilities BUT excellent ball feeling, excellent placement, pure talent in BH rallies close to the table and variations in BH opening game against push, no spin balls, short long semi long serves you name it.

Steady FH and he always tries to neutralize the point and take advantage of an opponent's poor shot, always trying to fool the opponent in neutral short balls, with flicks, pushes, soft touch and very good imagination on how to open up the rally to his advantage


Crisan's game is quite simple with lots of jedi mind tricks depending on the opponent, something like samsonov but without the rallying ability

Another good player that comes to mind is gustavo tsuboi, weird technique and weird grip of the paddle again but hasnt provided results like aruna. Watch some of his matches he definitely puts up a good fight against some good euro/japan players. From the old era damien eloi comes to mind and the french coach of tristan flore with his BH violin receive cant remember the name right now
 
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