Post 40+, the highway to Quadri Aruna?

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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

It is not consistent against whom? Again, the point is that when you have to recover, you either get faster or you measure your shot better. People evolve. If you can't return my forehand, why should I plan to recover? When I see it come back a few times, then I will get into the habit or find said technique.

Given the rallies that Aruna played against most players, the idea that his goal was to finish the point early is fairly ridiculous.
 
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So how many posts have people opened on Lebesson? Platonov? Or other similarly high level forehands with unique methodology?

Lebesson and Platonov didnt reach the Olympics quarter finals, Lebesson can't even win a match in olympics.
 
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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.

The author talked about "African players" and he uses "they" and "their"
 
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So how many posts have people opened on Lebesson? Platonov? Or other similarly high level forehands with unique methodology?

oh yeah NL platonov definitely comes to mind. he won gionis two times in euro champs 2013 & 2015

mizu in the first two sets had problems handling platonov's opening game imho and if pavel didnt make some unforced errors in the end he would be really close to an upset
 
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It was not clever indeed but I really dont think that it was meant to be racist.

His argument wasnt so bad, african people are more athletic than europeans, which is a really favourable factor, and the poly ball was told to be less spinny and to favour power-based players. I dont see where is the racist part here.
 

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Sorry Slym - I definitely confused you with the author - I saw the French flag and just assumed (slightly awkward given the racist comments on this thread lol!).

We all need to chill out, remember English isn't most people's first language, and just bloody get on with each other for the sake of Table Tennis.

Is the author racist? Unlikely - Certainly their intention was not racism when the original post was written.

Let's not jump on the smallest of comments and hound people into never posting again.
 
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It is not consistent against whom? Again, the point is that when you have to recover, you either get faster or you measure your shot better. People evolve. If you can't return my forehand, why should I plan to recover? When I see it come back a few times, then I will get into the habit or find said technique.

Given the rallies that Aruna played against most players, the idea that his goal was to finish the point early is fairly ridiculous.


It is not consistent in general, in wttc 2015 he lost to soumajit gosh (quite decent player from india, but certainly not on aruna's level imho) in the opening round dont remember the name exactly. Obviously there are many reasons (decision making, wrong assessment of the situation, maybe they underestimated his ability, poor receives on aruna's opening game, stubborness on believing that aruna cant execute a good FH against a body/BH placement shot) why aruna's FH was unreturnable in boll and chuang matches, not only the fact that aruna's FH is devastating.

well how do you explain the fact that most of the points ended, in devastating FH attacks cause by his tactics , but when rallies came along most of the times aruna made mistakes? For sure i didnt count rally by rally all the points , its just the impression I have after a set has ended

Im speaking about the matches against chuang boll and ma long, i didnt watch his games against the other players
 

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It was not clever indeed but I really dont think that it was meant to be racist.

His argument wasnt so bad, african people are more athletic than europeans, which is a really favourable factor, and the poly ball was told to be less spinny and to favour power-based players. I dont see where is the racist part here.

I see where you are going with that, and I understand your thinking (even if it is very flawed) - If that were the case, the small Chinese players wouldn't stand a chance against the more athletic power houses out there.

I personally don't think the poly ball has improved Aruna's chances a huge amount - If anything, his style of play has benefited from it, but that has nothing to do with his athletic ability (in my opinion).
 
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Indeed I don't think that either, Aruna is just improving a lot, poly ball or plastic ball. He's like the ZJK of Nigeria, gives his best in great events.
 
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It is not consistent in general, in wttc 2015 he lost to soumajit gosh (quite decent player from india, but certainly not on aruna's level imho) in the opening round dont remember the name exactly. Obviously there are many reasons (decision making, wrong assessment of the situation, maybe they underestimated his ability, poor receives on aruna's opening game, stubborness on believing that aruna cant execute a good FH against a body/BH placement shot) why aruna's FH was unreturnable in boll and chuang matches, not only the fact that aruna's FH is devastating.

well how do you explain the fact that most of the points ended, in devastating FH attacks cause by his tactics , but when rallies came along most of the times aruna made mistakes? For sure i didnt count rally by rally all the points , its just the impression I have after a set has ended

Im speaking about the matches against chuang boll and ma long, i didnt watch his games against the other players

My impression was very different. I saw Aruna using his athleticism to win the rallies. In fact, Aruna thrives on using his forehand in rallies so your statements are puzzling. In any case, I think we have very different perspectives on Aruna since I watch him closely as a Nigerian and you watch him once in a while. Aruna's backhand used to be so bad that it was easy to exploit. He put in a lot of work the past year. It is only obvious to people who watch him regularly.
 
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Indeed I don't think that either, Aruna is just improving a lot, poly ball or plastic ball. He's like the ZJK of Nigeria, gives his best in great events.


Glad to hear you say it so directly. People do not realize that some of this stuff happened in the Commonwealth games in 2014 in a celluloid ball tournament. The biggest change was that the head of the Nigerian TTF had started encouraging players to play Pro tours. That's part of the reason why Aruna's ranking started to improve as he started seeing how he fared against some of the players he was ranked below. There are many Europeans who will never beat a healthy Boll with any kind of ball. But when Aruna does it, people look for all kinds of excuses.
 
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My impression was very different. I saw Aruna using his athleticism to win the rallies. In fact, Aruna thrives on using his forehand in rallies so your statements are puzzling. In any case, I think we have very different perspectives on Aruna since I watch him closely as a Nigerian and you watch him once in a while. Aruna's backhand used to be so bad that it was easy to exploit. He put in a lot of work the past year. It is only obvious to people who watch him regularly.

Acrually i watched aruna in the french league quite a few times but its a differente occasion than olympics. I would dare to say that he has improved alot since april. If i find the time i will watch the match with chuang again to see if my impression is misleading
 
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Glad to hear you say it so directly. People do not realize that some of this stuff happened in the Commonwealth games in 2014 in a celluloid ball tournament. The biggest change was that the head of the Nigerian TTF had started encouraging players to play Pro tours. That's part of the reason why Aruna's ranking started to improve as he started seeing how he fared against some of the players he was ranked below. There are many Europeans who will never beat a healthy Boll with any kind of ball. But when Aruna does it, people look for all kinds of excuses.

Health condition is definitely a poor excuse my friend, especially when an injured samsonov manages to beat an inform ovtcharov. I strongly believe that boll could beat aruna even on a bad day with poor health ( i think some people will eat their tongues if boll speaks openly and honestly about the match after the olympics) , but this doesnt take anything away from the fact that aruna totally outsmarted boll&chuang in their game
 
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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.
Just saw this. Maybe I am oversimplifying what I mean but what I mean is that Aruna needs to play more against these kinds of players. There are too many variables he needs to adapt to vs a regular player.

Ma Long probably doesn't know, like I do, that Quadri and CCY have played before. In that match, CCY beat Aruna so badly that Aruna told Bobrow that CCY bought his own ball and refused to let Aruna play (all figurative speech). I was not even considering the possibility that CCY would lose. But after he beat CCY, and Boll struggled with Shibaev, I had hope for Boll. Aruna had improved a lot of things in his game, his serves especially and his short game. Not CNT level but major improvements. Not as easy to expose as it was before. Boll being a lefty was able to find Aruna's backhand more easily but that match could easily have been 4-1 for Boll as well.

I saw how badly Xu Xin beat Aruna when they played this year. So I wanted to see if Aruna could handle that ball. Immediately he couldn't, I knew it was going to be ugly because Xu Xin showed me already that Aruna's ball is not going to bother CNT players. Fan Zhendong and Ovtcharov loop at least as hard as Aruna.

The Chinese criticize Boll and Mizutani's technique all the time. Boll plays with regular Tenergy 05 spin. Hurricane is a different animal and when you watch Chinese power loopers play Europeans, you can see the difference in how the rubbers facilitate shots.

Why am I saying all this? To make it clear that yes, Ma Long is a far better player. But the gap is more cognitive and experience based than technical. JYS, who many people have been talking about, knew he would have to beat Ma Long to get a medal. Aruna didn't realistically think he would best CCY.. You can't prepare for Ma Long in 24 hours. You just can't.
 
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Health condition is definitely a poor excuse my friend, especially when an injured samsonov manages to beat an inform ovtcharov. I strongly believe that boll could beat aruna even on a bad day with poor health ( i think some people will eat their tongues if boll speaks openly and honestly about the match after the olympics) , but this doesnt take anything away from the fact that aruna totally outsmarted boll&chuang in their game

Some of the things your write betray a level of intemperance that is puzzling. Injury before or after a match is different from injury during the match as that often affects the opponent as well. But in any case, I like your suspicion as it shows the level of respect you hold for Aruna and Boll.
 
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I dont know if i understood the meaning of intemperance, had to search it on google & dictionary but all i was trying to say is that boll could beat aruna even if he was in poor physical condition, something that only timo knows for sure not us.

Of course injuries are different but, I was pointing out the urge of some fans/users to explain a favorite losing like this for example "what ? timo boll lost to aruna??? no way how the hell did that happen?? ! there must be something wrong with timo, he had a surgery 11 months ago after all !

same sentimetal approach also is appearing with ZJK ma long xu xin etc etc. when a favorite player lose , there must be something wrong with the favorite, opponent is lower ranked, doesnt have a world title so he is a noob who got lucky and get to beat a world class player"

The reason I used vladi for an example is that, he played great tactics and tried to adapt with the new situation he risked also got a bit lucky and tactics paid off.

if he lost some fans would still say "oh vladi was injured dima got lucky" .

Dima on the other hand played foolishly from set 1, always trying to outpower vladi with strong topspins, urging to finisht the point and lost some relatively easy balls. I cant know if he was affected, his body language seemed relaxed and aggressive but he really threw away some good chances in the last sets with his urge to attack hard

all in all and to wrap it up in one sentece : some people believe what they like to believe, reality is a different thing though.
 
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It is not the new ball it is determination and hard work and... a good wife!


Wait a minute, in Rocky 1 didn't Rocky's trainer say: "Women weaken legs!" [emoji2]


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From mytt translations

zeio said:
"I was surprised by his performance."

"Many people would feel amazed at Aruna's performance. No one could believe...and I couldn't believe that he was able to play at this high a level. This was my first time playing him. I am very frustated by the result. I kept trying to adjust but near the end I realized it was already too late. Without a doubt, his performance was impressive."

"His movement and backhand gave me tons of trouble. That was the main reason for my loss today."

"Having lost the singles, I will turn my attention to the team event. Our first opponent is Chinese Taipei, which is going to be a tough match and we will have to give it a lot of effort. If we make it to the final, there is good chance we will face China. Now is the time to prepare." ~ TB

Posted on mytt.
 
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Why am I saying all this? To make it clear that yes, Ma Long is a far better player. But the gap is more cognitive and experience based than technical.
I think you are not absolutely right on that.

My impression is that a lot of people call Aruna's technique inferior because it is not common. It does not look how you would describe a perfect topspin. However, the key elements such as acceleration in hitting point, power, spin they are all there. Consequently, the technique cannot be bad. Otherwise his shots wouldn't be as effective and powerful as they are. That he has some uncommon moves before and after hitting the ball doesn't matter if he has enough time to get ready for the next shot. So finally, his technique is not worse than of most European players. As you said Boll's technique is far from optimum as well and probably it is one of the better ones in Europe.

But I don't agree with you saying that there is no big technical gap between Chinese players or some other world class players and Aruna. It definitely is. For instance, if you look at Ma Long he always is in the right position, has balance and consistency. It looks as if one shot flows smoothly into the next. Also, his technique is effective in terms of energy consumption. It's similar for all CNT players. In contrast with this, I often get the impression that Aruna almost trips over his own feet. He often lacks stability and is playing on one feet, next to his head or in front of his belly. Every stroke looks different. Of course, in most of the cases he is able to compensate these technical faults with an unbelievable power and athleticism. What makes it more impressive in my eyes. He often has little stability but plays a very hard stroke. Maybe, this is his strenght and weakness at same time because he plays out of such uncommon positions that his opponents are surprised and cannot believe it. Moreover, they are not used to the curve of his uncommon (or unorthodox) technique. Probably, if they play him second or third time they look much better against him. Your argumentation that he only needs some practice with CNT players to adapt to their speed is subjective. I could argue as well that players like Boll or CCY only need some practice with him to adapt to his special style and then he has no more chance to win against them because they have much more variation and experience. They are more complete players.
You cannot overlook that he has some instability and inconsistency only because he compensates it with will, athletics and fighting. It is as someone said before: he plays more like one stroke after another. Playing one and then thinking about the next. Not like Ma Long playing a whole combination. But these combinations are also part of technique.

It's the same with his footwork. Aruna is very, very, very fast. He has so much power in his legs that he can reach almost every ball. Besides this physical strength, as mentioned before, he has this rare talent to play fantastic strokes even if he is not in the best position. And that is one impressive part of his game (and technique if your definition includes that). However, in terms of technique his footwork is bad. It seems as if the lacks some kind of coordination. Examples: standing on one foot, stumbling, moving looks more than this of a 100 metres sprinter than of a table tennis player, weight on the wrong foot, ... In my opinion, this is also the reason why he has no chance against Ma Long and CNT. They are playing that fast that he is not able anymore, to compensate his technical faults in footwork with his physical strength. When Ma Long was blocking down the line in his FH or playing counter topspin he sometimes wasn't even able to make one further step in that direction. Not only because Ma Long played faster than he is used to, but also because his technique crashed at that speed. And I think it is not enough to practice with higher speed or against Hurricane rubbers. To be competitive with Ma Long he would have to change technical aspects of his game. Because with his current style there is a limit of how much speed he can handle.

As I said before I am not saying that his technique is bad. That's not what this paragraph is about. It is great and not worse than most other players. Most players have similar problems facing the CNT. But saying that there is no big gap to Chinese technique is ridiculous in my eyes. CNT members are not only playing faster because of their rubbers. The rubbers might have an impact but it is also because they have a better technique. I had three Chinese coaches during my life. All of them had so much more knowledge about technique than every German coach I met. It was unbelievable.

Anyway, all that doesn't matter because technique isn't everything. Putting all factors together (tactics, technique, physical strength, will, nerves, ...) Aruna is a very good player. He improved a lot - especially his backhand and receives - and had some fantastic performances at Rio. Thus, his great results were well-deserved. He has a fresh style of playing and the spectators like him a lot. Therefore, I hope he will play on that level more often. I enjoy watching him.

Refering to the beginning of the thread: this is no cultural or African thing. It is his personal style and it has nothing to do with 40+ ball.
 
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