Its important for a professional sportsman to know when it is going downhill and when you should probably stop. Just because you have passion and there is no other player in your country, one should not play forever. You can give back a lot to game after retirement to satisfy the passion for the game - like coaching, in admin and even playing in senior tour. Who knows he can touch equally great heights as a coach ala LGY. Rather than playing till 50 (and losing most of the matches ) since no other player is coming around from BLR, he should devote his time to cultivate 10 Samsonov's from BLR in the next decade.
What makes you think players retire and become coaches?
What makes you think players can become successful coaches?
That is a pretty ignorant thinking as you are assuming that the player will continue to serve the sport in another way?
If Samsonov doesn't coach, and there is no one else taking over.
TT will die out, loose funding, etc etc
So for you, maybe you don't like what he is doing.
But maybe his decision to stay on and for the survival of TT in his country?
This is why a lot of aged professionals also don't retire.
They don't really have someone else to take over....
CCY of Taiwan (i'm very close to TPE management too), if CCY stops playing, TPE will loose its high team ranking and possibly never be in the 5-8 position again, as it got to do with seeding.
Loosing olympic medal hopes + loosing world team positioning could really hurt funding and budgets for the future
There is lots of matters than oppose to just fan boy feeling on "legacy".
If Samsonov stays on to play and thus loosing but improving and creating some hope (than oppose to no hope), would be legacy on top of legacy.
And I also think you have not coach a top junior player before.
So Samsonov can just coach 10 Samsonov?
so are you saying, he should retired now and choose 50 x 5 years old, and do a 15 year plan and hope 10 of them becomes a world top 20 in 2032??
I wonder what was so difficult for his coach just to coach another samsonv (since his coach already has some experience)...