I was in Felipe's corner that day. Lukasz has not pips but he can be like a wall blocking everything! he uses regular rubbers both sidesOnce Felipe figured out the pips there was no hope for Lukasz.
Yes to the first two. Maybe a picky umpire would fault the arm. But my 3rd would be tossing from the fingers not the palm. In fact it almost appears that he is flicking the ball thus imparting spin.The service does not commence with the ball resting on a stationary hand (2.06.01).
The ball is over the table when he commences to throw it up (2.06.04).
With the reverse pendulum serve he possibly does not move his arm sufficiently from the space between the ball and the net (2.06.05).
With his tomahawk serves (see second serve of the first game) it could be argued that the toss is not near vertical as he strikes the ball from well behind the service line (2.06.02).
In any case, most people will not be able to beat this guy with a lifetime of training.
Sorry NL, but this sounds totally exaggerated and kinda farfetched to me.
I really don't want to belittle his playing abilities, but if we're just going from the rating and translate it to german TTR then he would be something around 1800 TTR. To be fair let's add another few more points and say he's 1850 TTR which would be somewhat between Bezirksliga and Hessenliga, where many elder players have an unorthodox style, which would be playing still pretty good, maybe even a little above average, but not much more.
That rating wouldn't be enough to be in the Top 2800 players in germany. So at least 2800 (!!!) have a higher rating. Two thousand eight hundred!
According to German TTR Ranking No# 2801 is Daniel Schäfer with a scoring of 1851 TTR points...
Here's 'evidence' to back up my claims.
View attachment 11393
I understand that you respect having him reached such a high level with his unorthodox playstyle, but please don't make him better than he really is... You're just not doing a favour to anyone by saying that. Not to upcoming youngsters, and also not to him, 'cause a lot of people will be even more motivated to beat him.
Nevertheless he's still quite good!
PLUS: I think it's not very motivating for a young player to hear stuff like: "you can practice all your life and still never reach the level like Dude with that funny style... Especially when it's just not true.
Sorry mate, just my 2 ¢
2801 out of how many registered players? Are there more players below or above him? If you coach people, you will realize that people who tend to play and train are the ones that don't give up and love the sport. And many of them do not break 1800, talk less of 2200.
I am not posting for kids. I am posting for grown adults who realize that having limitations in life is a reality. I play better than many people who trained as kids but just never really fell in love with the sport. So yes, it is possible to train and play your whole life and not be good at table tennis. Just facts. No fiction. It's just that the people who tend to do so tend to be good at the sport and enjoy it, so they stand out. It's no different from saying that some people will go to work every day for their whole life and will never be millionaires. Sad but true. No fiction.
Ok, i can agree that 2801 is definitely not the majority of players in germany. But i think it's quite a large number, and this will lead to my next point...
Ok accepted, but then let me try to be the voice for the youth:
I believe a kid maybe around 14 years old that get's A-class coaching [highest coaching license in Germany] by for instance Helmut Hampl should certainly be able to beat the guy after maybe 3 - 4 years of that high-level coaching IMHO...
Sure. And I believe some kids will not be able to if they do the same either. If we pick 10 random kids, my opinion is that less than 5 will do it. People underestimate the importance of reading and creating tricky spins in this game. It is not trivial.
For the record, I would love to see Lukasz and JP Kadzinski battle. That would be an entertaining matchup.