Can Timo Boll's victory give rest of world belief?

Carl, I know your points. However, the current world ranking is a way to tell the level and the performance as ranking points consists of rating points (depending on who one wins and who one loses to) and bonus points (the level of tournament and the result).
ML lost 24 rating points when losing to Timo Boll in World Cup while gained only 2 points for beating Omar Assar, Koki Nina and Simon Gauzy, respectively; he gained 42 bonus points with 3rd place. Being #1 in rating points and ranking points since early 2015 reflects his level and performance in recent years. Next month, DO's ranking points will be over XX and below FZD to become #3. I think it also makes sense as the performance of DO this year so far (World Cup, 3 ITTF tours, 2 European champions) is better than XX (no champion so far) and FZD (1 Asian champion so far). However DO's rating points are still lower than XX and FZD, which reflects his level not surpassing them yet.

Next Jan, in addition to DO, Koki Niwa (no appearance in final so far this year) is for sure ranked over ML (World Champion, 2 ITTF tours). FZD, XX, LGY and Simon Gauzy are most likely to ranked over ML. ML probably need to win 2-3 ITTF tours to be back to #1 and the question is when he will be able to play after treatment and whether he will play ITTF tours (next year the focus of CNT is WTTC team events and Asian Games.)

UpSideDownCarl said:

You may have interpreted that correctly. But I think brodolio was referring to how long, how many years....in total, Ma Long would be able to maintain the level of play that causes him to be the best player in the world CURRENTLY.
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There is a german phrase that fits like a glove:
eine Schwalbe macht noch keinen Sommer.
translated: one single swallow doesn't mean summer has come.

Meaning: one shouldn't interpret too much into a single victory...

I wouldn't go so far to speak of German dominance, but what can be said is that Germany has been performing on a very high level for quite some time now and has definitely made an impact on the worldwide tabletennis scene, no matter what haters would say...

Not so bad for a country sized smaller than some chinese provinces i would say...

But domination? Not even closely...
[Emoji23]

Suga D said:

There is a german phrase that fits like a glove:
eine Schwalbe macht noch keinen Sommer.
translated: one single swallow doesn't mean summer has come.

Meaning: one shouldn't interpret too much into a single victory...

I wouldn't go so far to speak of German dominance, but what can be said is that Germany has been performing on a very high level for quite some time now and has definitely made an impact on the worldwide tabletennis scene, no matter what haters would say...

Not so bad for a country sized smaller than some chinese provinces i would say...

But domination? Not even closely...
[Emoji23]

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This phrase exists in hungarian too. And the problem is, that China still has 20 times as much good young player than Germany. Please, tell me who is the german prodigy? Patrick Franziska? Duda Benedikt? Neither is in the top 50. The best german U18 player is Tobias Hippler, ranked 38. Actually, just based on rankings, Germany isn't much over Hungary, which is a shame, knowing the playing level here. The best german players are Boll, Ovtcharov, Ruwen and Steger! This team is everything, but young. Sweden and France are stronger in young players right now and I think even Belgium and Romania has the same potential as Germany.

ajtatosmano2 said:

This phrase exists in hungarian too. And the problem is, that China still has 20 times as much good young player than Germany. Please, tell me who is the german prodigy? Patrick Franziska? Duda Benedikt? Neither is in the top 50. The best german U18 player is Tobias Hippler, ranked 38. Actually, just based on rankings, Germany isn't much over Hungary, which is a shame, knowing the playing level here. The best german players are Boll, Ovtcharov, Ruwen and Steger! This team is everything, but young. Sweden and France are stronger in young players right now and I think even Belgium and Romania has the same potential as Germany.

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Almost true!
Walther and Duda have made some good progress last season. Qiu is developing as well. Stumper and Xu are both a bit young still...
... but i remember Hungary having higher ranked players too when i was a kid.
Players like Jonyer and Gergely come to my mind.
[Emoji6]

Suga D said:

Almost true!
Walther and Duda have made some good progress last season. Qiu is developing as well. Stumper and Xu are both a bit young still...
... but i remember Hungary having higher ranked players too when i was a kid.
Players like Jonyer and Gergely come to my mind.
[Emoji6]

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Back then Hungary was world No.1, but that's the past. Walther and Duda made progression, but it was a short burst and as I said, they are still out of top 50. Qiu is developing consistently, but he is kind of lacking the attacking mentality and plays a controlled attacking game. I don't know too much about Stumper and Xu. The current young players should join some bigger leagues in a few years, so we will see what happens (many of them are already playing with different success).

And Germany has more than 80 million people - Sweden has 10 million

Suga D said:

There is a german phrase that fits like a glove:
eine Schwalbe macht noch keinen Sommer.
translated: one single swallow doesn't mean summer has come.

Meaning: one shouldn't interpret too much into a single victory...

I wouldn't go so far to speak of German dominance, but what can be said is that Germany has been performing on a very high level for quite some time now and has definitely made an impact on the worldwide tabletennis scene, no matter what haters would say...

Not so bad for a country sized smaller than some chinese provinces i would say...

But domination? Not even closely...
[Emoji23]

Click to expand...

rainneverever said:

Carl, I know your points. However, the current world ranking is a way to tell the level and the performance as ranking points consists of rating points (depending on who one wins and who one loses to) and bonus points (the level of tournament and the result).
ML lost 24 rating points when losing to Timo Boll in World Cup while gained only 2 points for beating Omar Assar, Koki Nina and Simon Gauzy, respectively; he gained 42 bonus points with 3rd place. Being #1 in rating points and ranking points since early 2015 reflects his level and performance in recent years. Next month, DO's ranking points will be over XX and below FZD to become #3. I think it also makes sense as the performance of DO this year so far (World Cup, 3 ITTF tours, 2 European champions) is better than XX (no champion so far) and FZD (1 Asian champion so far). However DO's rating points are still lower than XX and FZD, which reflects his level not surpassing them yet.

Next Jan, in addition to DO, Koki Niwa (no appearance in final so far this year) is for sure ranked over ML (World Champion, 2 ITTF tours). FZD, XX, LGY and Simon Gauzy are most likely to ranked over ML. ML probably need to win 2-3 ITTF tours to be back to #1 and the question is when he will be able to play after treatment and whether he will play ITTF tours (next year the focus of CNT is WTTC team events and Asian Games.)

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I appreciate your love of statistics even if the statistics are beside the point.

Does anyone here think any of the stats listed above mean that Ma Long will no longer be the best player in the world when his world ranking drops from the Number 1 spot in January?

And, of course, the answer to how long he will be able to remain the best player in the world will depend on his health and how his physical injuries are managed. Since none of us can really see into the future, anyone’s guess on how long ML will be the best player in the world is just that. A guess.

But as a Ma Long Fan Girl, rainneverever, how many more years do you think Ma Long will be able to be the best of the best?

Can he win in the 2019 WTTC?

Can he win in the 2020 Olympics?



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The problem is that the ITTF WR isn't based on a pure Élő rating. Élő points only represent the players effectiveness, while ITTF uses bonus points. So if you attend more tournament and always get a stable good result, you will have better rating than a player who only attends a few tournaments, but he wins them.

Carl, if his health allowed (not necessarily injury-free, but still be able to stand closed training), ML will be selected to play 2020 OG singles based on the previous CNT criteria - 17 and 19 WTTC champions. He and the other CNT player, most likely FZD will be drawn into two halves and I do not see anyone outside CNT a real threat to him now. However, for 2019 WTTC, very likely that ML will meet a CNT player in quarterfinal being a 5-8 seed (Tecent news said that he considers reducing attending tournaments for injury recovery; less attendence of ITTF tours, lower ranking). I think he has better chance in 2020 OG than 2019 WTTC because OG has only 5 rounds and WTTC has 7 rounds. But of course I hope to see him in both finals and win both.

RidTheKid said:

And Germany has more than 80 million people - Sweden has 10 million

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PLUS Sweden really WAS dominating the Tabletennis world for a while opposed to Germany.

Still i think Germany has had quite a few respectable achievements in the last 20 years (actually even a little further back if Rosskopf's 'n Fetzner's WC doubles title '89 does count) and managed to reach quarters, semis, or even finals quite a few times.
I would tend to believe that there are a few countries that would be pretty happy having players playing on that level.
So no need to go crazy and get ecstatic but at the same time no need to be depressed and jump out the window.

But as ajtatosmano2 already wrote: they (the DTTB team) aren't youngsters anymore, and not very much follow ups in sight.

That being said, i still think Franziska still hasn't reached his full potential yet. I really hope he reaches it.
On his FB he posted a vid of him practicing hard while the Worldcup took place. So maybe his motivation has been tickled a bit too. (He shares the same fate as FB and YA by having some extraordinarily good players in front of them, but maybe they still find time to shine. I still have hope and still keep the faith)

Players with the amount of talent and also the will to work like Boll don't come a dime a dozen. Many times very talented players tend to get lazy, but not so Timo. You don't find that a lot.
But on the other hand Dima should be motivating for players that don't have the skillset of Timo but still can compensate that with very hard work.

Why compare Hirano with this WC event? It is similar because it is a single event where the champ is not Chinese. Then the Chinese will be alert and be ready to use all their arsenal to dominate again. Keep in mind tere are only 2 top Chinese in this event. In the WC 2018 or Olympic they will have all top 4 Chinese players who CONSISTENTLY beat Timo, Niwa, Oscharov many ... many times in the last 10 years. You guys are hoping too much from a single event which doesn't make any sense. Just be ready to see ML, FZD, XX, someone not LGY to dominate the TT circuit in the next 12 months AGAIN and AGAIN.

The only thing that we can hope is the Chinese authorization screw up themselves by eliminating LGL and continue torturing mentally their own players. That is the real hope.

The Germans dominated this event. What happens in the next tour event may indicate whether that continues.

tropical said:

Why compare Hirano with this WC event? It is similar because it is a single event where the champ is not Chinese. Then the Chinese will be alert and be ready to use all their arsenal to dominate again. Keep in mind tere are only 2 top Chinese in this event. In the WC 2018 or Olympic they will have all top 4 Chinese players who CONSISTENTLY beat Timo, Niwa, Oscharov many ... many times in the last 10 years. You guys are hoping too much from a single event which doesn't make any sense. Just be ready to see ML, FZD, XX, someone not LGY to dominate the TT circuit in the next 12 months AGAIN and AGAIN.

The only thing that we can hope is the Chinese authorization screw up themselves by eliminating LGL and continue torturing mentally their own players. That is the real hope.

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I pretty much agree with this. It is a mistake to put too much weight into a single tournament. I might not put it in quite those terms (like saying they are mentally torturing their players, but then again my background is different from tropical's and he has experienced things I haven't; also I have no idea what happened to ML and FZD after the China boycott, and China is entering into some strange new times that make me pretty nervous).

One thing I know for sure is that Ma Long when he is at his usual level of the last few years has been superior to all non-Chinese players by some considerable margin. Of course, every great player eventually comes to a peak and the decline comes after that. Is that happening to Ma Long now? We can't know this yet. We can't know his mental state. We don't know how badly he is hurt either. But I for one would not bet against him.

I am pretty sure about this though, Timo Boll is too old to sustain this level for much longer, and so German "dominance" right now is one guy, Dima Ovtcharov, who didn't beat any Chinese player in this tournament.

Yeah. I don’t think ML is near the end of his best play yet. He is still better than everyone else. If they get him healthy, that continue to be the case even if the CNT has some growing pains associated with the events that have occurred since June.

And everyone has tournaments or days when they don’t play as well as they normally do.

To me it was just interesting how he and FZD have both performed worse than their normal standard.

I have seen both of them lose before. But it has been a good long time since either of them have played as sub-par as ML’s performance in the World Cup and FZD’s performance in the Asian Cup.

But those two are still the best and second best players in the world until someone else can overcome the kind of dominance they have displayed over the past several years.

It just will be interesting to see if this remains an isolated event or if the CNT has bigger growing pains in store.

In 2009 when Samsonov won the World Cup, there was no question that it was just a small hiccup. This could be that or something bigger. And we won’t know for the next six months to a year.

And still, if it was a larger issue, it is only a matter of time before the CNT reasserts it’s dominance.


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I guess i would have to agree mostly.
But as others posted above, blaming everything on the missing of the mastermind Liu Guoliang doesn't grab the full picture IMHO, plus it's also not very fair towards Wang Hao and Ma Lin.

For the German National Team I'm a bit worried who will follow up if Boll retires one day.

I think that people dont see what is going with our sport this days, if you read the interview with ma long after the game where he is talking about the balls, he switched 5 balls in the last month or so, and he said that he is not yet addapted well to this balls tactically! There is a huge difference in spin speed bounce sound and grip between 10 types of plastic balls, every day they invent a new ball with different carecteristycs, i see this like tennis, you need a one tactic to play grass and another to play clay, and im not even talking about the time it takes to adjust to the ball, if you had a tournament yesterday with dhs and tomorrow league match with bty balls its a whole different story, i stil play regularly and with some balls that feel lighter and softer i beat very high ranked player that i loss easilly with hard heavyer feeling balls like the bty g, because it soutts my style of play better because i use more speed counter game close to table and the lighter-softer the easyer it is to counter for me, because there is less spin sensytivity and less spin. Im not shoure if this is good or bad for the sport because in one hand its great that timo beat ml and brought some life to our podium... but in the other hand it is much harder to do conssistent results and technics, because you must do many addaptment from one day to another... chapo for timo its a great desserved win, but the chinese will always addaped better in the end so let there be on type of ball with one formulla for all brands and let us play please, because it causes unforced errors and dont let you get regular as much as you need to be in the zone, like you would have been if there was only one ball! Help save table tennis by sharing this.

Suga D said:

I guess i would have to agree mostly.
But as others posted above, blaming everything on the missing of the mastermind Liu Guoliang doesn't grab the full picture IMHO, plus it's also not very fair towards Wang Hao and Ma Lin.

For the German National Team I'm a bit worried who will follow up if Boll retires one day.

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Wang Hao and Ma Lin are great players, but we don't know what they can offer tactically. Even tactical skills can come from instincts to some extent.
Besides that, I think they wshould be good coaches.

Baal said:

But I for one would not bet against him.

I am pretty sure about this though, Timo Boll is too old to sustain this level for much longer, and so German "dominance" right now is one guy, Dima Ovtcharov, who didn't beat any Chinese player in this tournament.

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Well, i wouldn't bet on this, too.
Depends how you define “much longer“

Timo stated in an interview after the olympic Games in Rio last year that he's willing and planning to play at Tokyo 2020 as well.

http://m.faz.net/aktuell/sport/mehr...-zu-olympia-2020-nach-tokio-15047935.amp.html

Let's hope he can maintain his health until then.
I don't think i need to tell how long Waldner was still playing on a decent level.
[Emoji6]

Suga D said:

Well, i wouldn't bet on this, too.
Depends how you define “much longer“

Timo stated in an interview after the olympic Games in Rio last year that he's willing and planning to play at Tokyo 2020 as well.

http://m.faz.net/aktuell/sport/mehr...-zu-olympia-2020-nach-tokio-15047935.amp.html

Let's hope he can maintain his health until then.
I don't think i need to tell how long Waldner was still playing on a decent level.
[Emoji6]

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Waldner is actually a really bad example. He got weight pretty soon, because he didn't care much about physique and health.
He stopped playing earlier than Persson too.
Vladi is the evergreen player.

ajtatosmano2 said:

He stopped playing earlier than

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Maybe internationally....
but he only stopped playing swedish league last year...
... i would tend to believe that his retirement was a bit later than Persson's
[Emoji12]