The All Time Greatest

ttmonster said:

LOL .... you cracked me up NL ...

OP ... lets just say Kreanga has a unique backhand and chooses to use it because his forehand is not that powerful at that level ....

now coming back to backhand ... and similar to how "Ma Long is the greatest player" because of the obvious reasons I mentioned in my first post , the greatest backhand is from FZD .... ZJK has more variety and confidence because obviously he has practiced it a few thousand hours more but FZD is the first player who has successfully married the close to the table , off the bounce backhand with the other ones ... mid distance or far from the table .... with ZJK you see that because the master that he is he can execute his close to the table technique even from a little far but Obtcharov was able to go a little back and overpower him with his strong mid distance backhands ...

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NextLevel said:

I have avoided the topic until now because I consider it a waste of time usually and the player I would pick is Ma Long.

People should note that there was a period in China where they had good/strong shakehand inverted loopers but kept them under wraps. Wang Liqin actually was also held back in many matches/events in the late 90s/early 2000s for the usual reasons that China has despite being their best player in many ways.

Also, when Ma Long and Zhang Jike were coming up, they were called the special generation. Of course, we are only seeing how special they are now, but my point is that this might not happen as often as we think. Their dominance is truly something to behold, though as special as they were, it wouldn't surprise me to see FZD winning everything in sight for a few years.

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jmillsy2 said:

Hey NL,

Was just wondering why you think that WLQ was held back in the late 90s/early 2000s? To my knowledge it was only twards the end of Waldner's international career that he had struggles in playing WLQ and in that fateful 2000 team final, China fielded a team comprising the reigning Olympic and World champion, (LGL) as well as the player who would go on to win the Olympics that same year (Kong Linghui) - the third player was Liu Guozheng who whilst debatably not as good as WLQ at the time, comfortably won his match vs Peter Karlsson in the final.

Liu G.Z. and Kong Linghui were both shakehand inverted loopers, so I am not sure who you are referring to when you say they had a bunch of these players that were kept under wraps.

The Chinese were not 'hiding' WLQ in that final - they just had players that were better than him that they could pick for the number one and two positions, and ultimately the third player in that final changing wouldn't have made much difference.

In terms of Ma Long and Zhang Jike, I think they are very impressive athletes; athletes who have also benefitted from a relative lack of fresh (being the key word) outside challenge from other countries.

Look at the main players who have been competing with ML and ZJK over the last 10 years. Then compare them to the players competing with the previous generation (playing vs Wang Hao, WLQ, Ma Lin, etc). A lot of them are the same (Timo, Vladi, the old guard Koreans, etc)...so whilst their dominance recently has been very impressive, I think it is just a shame that there haven't really been a large amount of fresh challengers to face them; their main challengers have all been players who the Chinese were very familiar with and ultimately faded as a threat over time (Joo Se Hyuk is a prime example of this).

Hopefully with the transition from ML, ZJK and XX to Fan Zhendong and whoever he brings with him, some new challengers from other countries may now emerge.

Sorry for writing you an essay!

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jmillsy2 said:

I mean - it's taking a lot away from Kreanga to say that his forehand isn't that powerful when he has a world championship bronze medal to his name

I think all the players mentioned in this thread are great in their own way, as well as many who haven't been mentioned it's an interesting discussion and it's nice to hear everyone's different point of view on the topic.

It will be interesting to see how the road goes in the few years time - whether FZD lives up to all the hype and etches his name onto the list of grand slam winners/greatest players or if a new challenger emerges

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ttmonster said:

Again .. you are making the same mistake as the OP when you are trying to compare ... winning the world championship bronze medal does not gurantee he has a the best backhand or a great forehand ... all it says is that he was able to execute his winning strategies against his opponents in that tournament ....

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jmillsy2 said:

All I was saying was that it's a bit off to say Kreanga's forehand isn't that good when he has found success in such a large tournament. It may not be the best forehand - far from it - but it's certainly not a weak stroke, as he's demonstrated in the past.

I never said he had the best backhand either - sorry if I caused confusion with my tone though

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Suga D said:

That's an interesting point.

I believe his forehand is still good enough to blow most forum members off the table...

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jmillsy2 said:

All I was saying was that it's a bit off to say Kreanga's forehand isn't that good when he has found success in such a large tournament. It may not be the best forehand - far from it - but it's certainly not a weak stroke, as he's demonstrated in the past.

I never said he had the best backhand either - sorry if I caused confusion with my tone though

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jmillsy2 said:

Hey NL,

Was just wondering why you think that WLQ was held back in the late 90s/early 2000s? To my knowledge it was only twards the end of Waldner's international career that he had struggles in playing WLQ and in that fateful 2000 team final, China fielded a team comprising the reigning Olympic and World champion, (LGL) as well as the player who would go on to win the Olympics that same year (Kong Linghui) - the third player was Liu Guozheng who whilst debatably not as good as WLQ at the time, comfortably won his match vs Peter Karlsson in the final.

Click to expand...

Liu G.Z. and Kong Linghui were both shakehand inverted loopers, so I am not sure who you are referring to when you say they had a bunch of these players that were kept under wraps.

Click to expand...

The Chinese were not 'hiding' WLQ in that final - they just had players that were better than him that they could pick for the number one and two positions, and ultimately the third player in that final changing wouldn't have made much difference.

Click to expand...

In terms of Ma Long and Zhang Jike, I think they are very impressive athletes; athletes who have also benefitted from a relative lack of fresh (being the key word) outside challenge from other countries.

Look at the main players who have been competing with ML and ZJK over the last 10 years. Then compare them to the players competing with the previous generation (playing vs Wang Hao, WLQ, Ma Lin, etc). A lot of them are the same (Timo, Vladi, the old guard Koreans, etc)...so whilst their dominance recently has been very impressive, I think it is just a shame that there haven't really been a large amount of fresh challengers to face them; their main challengers have all been players who the Chinese were very familiar with and ultimately faded as a threat over time (Joo Se Hyuk is a prime example of this).

Hopefully with the transition from ML, ZJK and XX to Fan Zhendong and whoever he brings with him, some new challengers from other countries may now emerge.

Sorry for writing you an essay!

Click to expand...

NextLevel said:

I am actually going back as far as 1987. Chen Yinghua said he used to beat Jiang Jialiang in practice very often - the best Chinese players internally were shakehand loopers modeled on Europeans, not pips-out penholders, yet pips out penholders were playing most tournaments.

http://www.masatenisi.org/english/secrets.htm

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UpSideDownCarl said:

I also pointed out that China actually sent a player [KONG LINGHUI] to SWEDEN in the 1990s to learn the style that was beating them. The Great Kong Linghui, the big Chinese Shakehand player. Why else would China send a player to learn from Sweden if they weren't damn good.

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