Who will win the World Junior Championships 2011?

  • Koki Niwa (JPN)

    Votes: 11 26.8%
  • Gaoyuan Lin (CHN)

    Votes: 16 39.0%
  • Jiaji Wu (CHN)

    Votes: 2 4.9%
  • Hongyuan Song (CHN)

    Votes: 2 4.9%
  • Maharu Yoshimura (JPN)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Quentin Robinot (FRA)

    Votes: 4 9.8%
  • Simon Gauzy (FRA)

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • Peifeng Zheng (CHN)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Liam Pitchford (ENG)

    Votes: 4 9.8%
  • Other - Comment below

    Votes: 1 2.4%

  • Total voters
    41
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Okay, that is quite exceptional indeed. Didn't Ishikawa give the current Chinese women team trouble in the World Team Cup?

To me, Kasumin looks like still need to improve her mental toughness. She has been not so consistence lately. But hopefuly she can pull out an exceptional performance for the single match. Go Kasumin!
 

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Look @ one of the vid :

Robinot get owned by an ex-doubleinverted chopper (now he is using TSP spinpips).
Heck, his chops are very deep and spinny ! But a bit high.

Cool post! He is an awesome chopper its great to see one competing at the highest Junior level possible! :)

Table Tennis is such a diverse game! 3 weeks ago Robinot has the match of his life beating current Olympic Champion Ma Lin, next minute he loses here hehe

Congratulations to Yuto tho, fine perfomance
 
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Robinot get owned by an ex-doubleinverted chopper (now he is using TSP spinpips).
Heck, his chops are very deep and spinny ! But a bit high.

I was watching a little bit on the girl team japan vs china. It seems like it just the japan team's chopper still not yet fully improve their chopping. But both boy and girl's chopper are the only one gave the china team some hard time. Hopefully they will improve the skill further more in the future.

I can see that if they are able to keep the ball low and high as they intend, this should give more threat to opponent.
 
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That chopper is amazing indeed. Maybe he chops high purposely to challenge his opponent to attack reckless ;) There's a load of backspin in them and they are often pretty long, so not smashable at all. I really hope we get to see him more often in the future, he is only 15 years old!!
 
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wow koki niwa lost both games against china. hope, that he will do better in the singles

Hmm I feel like a lot of people are really overrating Niwa Koki. Just like they did with Kenta Matsudaira. I definitely think Niwa is better, and has overall a style of play that has more potential than Kenta's but at the moment, unless Niwa gets a lot bigger/stronger, I don't think he is necessarily deserving of all the respect he is getting.

His reaction rate, his quickness are definitely absolutely amazing, his timing to get back shots that his opponents hit from mid range, while he is standing right at the table, is really something, but you can definitely see that there is a limit to his game. His match against Simon Gauzy really showed that. Despite pushing Simon back from the table in almost every point, he still had a lot of trouble putting away the point, and Simon was able to stay in the point for a long time, or even win the point with a good loop. As players get older and have higher quality of shots, its going to be harder and harder for Koki to rely on his current play style. He may do good against particular styles of play, or even against most styles of play, but it will still have large weaknesses, that the truly elite players just don't really have in their games.
 
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Hmm I feel like a lot of people are really overrating Niwa Koki. Just like they did with Kenta Matsudaira. I definitely think Niwa is better, and has overall a style of play that has more potential than Kenta's but at the moment, unless Niwa gets a lot bigger/stronger, I don't think he is necessarily deserving of all the respect he is getting.

His reaction rate, his quickness are definitely absolutely amazing, his timing to get back shots that people standing away from the table, while he is standing right at it, is really something, but you can definitely see that there is a limit to his game. His match against Simon Gauzy really showed that. Despite pushing Simon back from the table in almost every point, he still had a lot of trouble putting away the point, and Simon was able to stay in the point for a long time, or even win the point with a good loop. As players get older and have higher quality of shots, its going to be harder and harder for Koki to rely on his current play style. He may do good against particular styles of play, or even against most styles of play, but it will still have large weaknesses, that the truly elite players just don't really have in their games.

I think he needs to get more power in his strokes as well. If he gets the power on his strokes that some of his opponents get he defenitely has something extra with the things u mention, like his reaction speed and anticipation. In the end there are barely any Japanese top players with really powerful stroks in fact. I'm curious about his future, I hope he will do well. :)
 
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And he is the only victor in the Japan vs China team match.
Victory for China 2-1 shame Koki Niwa got beaten by Lin Gaoyuan.

Compared to another fellow teammate, Yuto has a tall build and scary full arm loop. Got hopes for him :)

To be fair, the game went to five, and part of the reason why he won was because his opponent Zheng happened to be the youngest member of the Chinese team. So he had the least amount of experience, and probably the necessary strength and fitness to play well against a chopper
 
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To be fair, the game went to five, and part of the reason why he won was because his opponent Zheng happened to be the youngest member of the Chinese team. So he had the least amount of experience, and probably the necessary strength and fitness to play well against a chopper

Yuto won 4/4 matches in the Team Event. 3 of them 3-0 (including his match against Robinot) and 3-1 against Zheng, where he had 2 matchpoints in the game he lost. Of course he only played against #3's, but it is still really good. He is only 15 years old as well, so age and experience wouldn't work as an excuse for Zheng I think. Would be interesting to see him against Song Hongyuan or Lin Gaoyuan.
 

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Hmm I feel like a lot of people are really overrating Niwa Koki. Just like they did with Kenta Matsudaira. I definitely think Niwa is better, and has overall a style of play that has more potential than Kenta's but at the moment, unless Niwa gets a lot bigger/stronger, I don't think he is necessarily deserving of all the respect he is getting.

His reaction rate, his quickness are definitely absolutely amazing, his timing to get back shots that his opponents hit from mid range, while he is standing right at the table, is really something, but you can definitely see that there is a limit to his game. His match against Simon Gauzy really showed that. Despite pushing Simon back from the table in almost every point, he still had a lot of trouble putting away the point, and Simon was able to stay in the point for a long time, or even win the point with a good loop. As players get older and have higher quality of shots, its going to be harder and harder for Koki to rely on his current play style. He may do good against particular styles of play, or even against most styles of play, but it will still have large weaknesses, that the truly elite players just don't really have in their games.

Funny you have said this Scylla. I was thinking how he may end up being the new Kenta. Very very promising when we first see him in action however...

Koki Niwa is extremely good and has amazing reactions and counter hits, but if he doesn't get stronger and grow he may reach his peak soon?

He is still young so we need to take that into consideration :)
 
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That boy got himself a new fan!
What an amazing chopper, he reminds me of my own playing style.
 
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Yuto won 4/4 matches in the Team Event. 3 of them 3-0 (including his match against Robinot) and 3-1 against Zheng, where he had 2 matchpoints in the game he lost. Of course he only played against #3's, but it is still really good. He is only 15 years old as well, so age and experience wouldn't work as an excuse for Zheng I think. Would be interesting to see him against Song Hongyuan or Lin Gaoyuan.

Well it is true that they are about the same age, I personally believe that the physical demands of being a chopper are less, and therefore, at that young age, when your muscles and strength are not as well developed as they otherwise would be, choppers have more of an advantage. Its takes a lot less physical exertion to chop a shot than to really loop it up to over come the extreme backspin, and that built up after a few games can take its toll.

I don't think Yuto would be as effective against the other two Chinese players who played in the final.
 
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Well it is true that they are about the same age, I personally believe that the physical demands of being a chopper are less, and therefore, at that young age, when your muscles and strength are not as well developed as they otherwise would be, choppers have more of an advantage. Its takes a lot less physical exertion to chop a shot than to really loop it up to over come the extreme backspin, and that built up after a few games can take its toll.

I don't think Yuto would be as effective against the other two Chinese players who played in the final.

That's true. Maybe he can meet them in the singles event. Still he is an interesting player. :) I would love to see him following in Joo's footsteps.
 
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That's true. Maybe he can meet them in the singles event. Still he is an interesting player. :) I would love to see him following in Joo's footsteps.

Oh yeah definitely, he seems already quite accomplished at making the transition from chopping to then smashing a high loop of his opponent. That's a skill that Joo only really started to become quite decent at in the past 2 years or so. So this Yuto kid, if he got really good at it, he would be potentially unstoppable. I mean if you really think about it, if some player was able to master both offensive and defensive play really well, he would be soooooo insanely hard to beat. Because every time his opponent gains the advantage and is able to attack first, he merely has to chop it to take away that advantage and reach an equal footing, and then if his offensive skills were also good, he would be able to move from that neutral position in the point to the positive offensive position. If you could master that skill, you would be able to greatly control each point and greatly increase your potential to win each point.

In addition, technically the physics behind chopping, which adds spin to your opponent's spin, is harder to do perfectly than a normal top spin hit, since a top spin first stops your opponent's spin and then adds your own, therefore if you were to master chopping to a level that hasn't been reached before, conceptually, chopping since its harder to master but therefore creates more spin, it should be the most effective style of play. Even though thus far the real world has shown differently.
 
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Oh yeah definitely, he seems already quite accomplished at making the transition from chopping to then smashing a high loop of his opponent. That's a skill that Joo only really started to become quite decent at in the past 2 years or so. So this Yuto kid, if he got really good at it, he would be potentially unstoppable. I mean if you really think about it, if some player was able to master both offensive and defensive play really well, he would be soooooo insanely hard to beat. Because every time his opponent gains the advantage and is able to attack first, he merely has to chop it to take away that advantage and reach an equal footing, and then if his offensive skills were also good, he would be able to move from that neutral position in the point to the positive offensive position. If you could master that skill, you would be able to greatly control each point and greatly increase your potential to win each point.

In addition, technically the physics behind chopping, which adds spin to your opponent's spin, is harder to do perfectly than a normal top spin hit, since a top spin first stops your opponent's spin and then adds your own, therefore if you were to master chopping to a level that hasn't been reached before, conceptually, chopping since its harder to master but therefore creates more spin, it should be the most effective style of play. Even though thus far the real world has shown differently.

In my team is actually a player who is kinda equal in defense and offense. He uses 2x Sriver G2 I believe or something like that. On both his chops and his loops (FH and BH) he gets great spin. Sometimes he would start a match chopping and the next game go in full offense. The opponent won't know what is happening :p Really hard to play against. I believe this Yuto uses 2x smooth rubber as well.
 
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