Reverse engineering chinese dominance

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Here we go again, one of these topics that keeps appearing over and over again. To be honest, I don't even think about this subject but the other day it just came to me and it was a moment of Ahaaaaa !! that happened while I was watching a match. Here is my argument and bare with me to the end:

What does chinese have other countries don't ?
  • Hurricane 3 blue sponge national thing.
  • Beside the talent of course, great physical performance. Other players don't necessarily lack that but this lead us to the third point.
  • A dense table tennis population, so basically players have age limit as younger players will always catch on them.

The last two points are coupled and might be seen as one point: there will always be few very talented and physically fit chinese players. This is not the case for other countries. Take Germany, since young Timo Boll and Ovtcharov, we don't see anyone really with their talent and touch. OK nothing really new here, every one knows that. Here is my final idea:

In the video I was watching I saw that Ma Long has always attacked first before the other player(not from china), I checked other videos and I could see a pattern. So basically the Hurricane 3 rubbers allow chinese players to play short ball in serve return but to attck with it, you will need to be very fit. This matches exactly the points mentionned above. On the other hand, using Jap/Eu rubbers will allow you to play at high level still despite age but it won't necessarily help you receive short as the chinese do. You might downplay this but if you could attack first everytime, you probably gonna win , it is not like football where you can defend and still win. You can also see that defenders in table tennis don't win much.

If you want that to end it is either DHS hurricane 3 national becomes available to anyone or a new Jap/Eu rubber that allows short serve returns with the same (or better) attacking attributes it has now is invented
 
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are you saying H3 natl BS is not available to any other players?
 
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I think anyone can play with Hurricane these days, players on the JNT and KNT use it.

Harimoto and Lin Yun Ju also show it is quite possible to have good short game skills without using tacky rubber.

So for me, the real thing is the incentives and the population of the Chinese and their history of table tennis specialization. I mean look at Xu Xin with his technically imbalanced game but amazing athleticism. You can only produce that kind of player in China. In any other country, he wouldn't have the level of competition to take that game to the very top.

In any case, I think if any country can throw in the resources that China throws into table tennis, that country might have a chance. We are seeing Japan and Korea create some really strong players now. India is also investing so it will be interesting. But having about 1 million plus kids seriously training and competing vs each other is a luxury for most countries in TT. In China, it is a cultural norm. No need to over think beyond that.

The reason for the last statement is that I often discuss technique with other players and I think while Chinese players have great technique, I like to point to Xu Xin as an example of someone who got to the top with technical imbalance. So you can see what the effect of resource investment can be even when your technique isn't always perfect.
 
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Xu Xin, technical, imbalance, in the same sentence?!
 
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I don't think anyone here ever mentioned that CNT trains as 1 Unit
whereby most countries, your national players are all scattered and doing they own thing.

JNT is maybe the closes to CNT in terms of "1 unit", but JNT players are still each they own unit most of the time.

so coming back to this, 1 unit = the players are paid to represent CNT, so they can devote most of the time at the National base and on tour.

The coaching staff (even though there is politics etc) are 1 unit. They have private individual coaches that fall under a head coach and have delegated training partners - again 1 unit.

I think most countries can implement the above (Japan again is the closes), but it will cost a lot of money

so we can just say China is investing in a lot of money, whereby other than Japan, no countries is even close to them
 
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It's always about the sample number. When you have a larger number of people, all competing for the same spot and pit them all together into one place where they can both constantly compete and improve on each other, the players' standard will keep on increasing.
 
In the video I was watching I saw that Ma Long has always attacked first before the other player(not from china), I checked other videos and I could see a pattern. So basically the Hurricane 3 rubbers allow chinese players to play short ball in serve return but to attck with it, you will need to be very fit. This matches exactly the points mentionned above. On the other hand, using Jap/Eu rubbers will allow you to play at high level still despite age but it won't necessarily help you receive short as the chinese do. You might downplay this but if you could attack first everytime, you probably gonna win , it is not like football where you can defend and still win. You can also see that defenders in table tennis don't win much.

So mostly addressing this part, since people have addressed player base and resources dedicated.

The other major factor is focus on fundamentals. It's a big part of asian cultures in general, but there is a much stronger focus on fundamentals over more creative/showy parts of the game.

That's not to say they don't encourage other parts of the game. But the Chinese coaching apparatus from bottom to top has very little tolerance for weak fundamentals.
Any sort of coaching starts from how you hold the bat, how you use your legs, how you move, how you swing etc. If somehow you managed to catch the eye of the CNT or some provincial team, through raw talent, but have shaky fundamentals. The first thing they will do when you are put into the official coaching channels is make sure your fundamentals are trained up to scratch.

The pattern of attacking first stems from this. There are so many people with strong fundamentals playing against each other in China that an emergent meta becomes very obvious. It's fine to be talented at many elements of the game, but if you are being obliterated in the first 3 balls, then you aren't getting to use any of your other talents.

So the emphasis of the tussle of the first attack is a pretty dominant thread through the CNT thinking on the game. At an elite level, everyone is by definition very talented at the game. When there is that much talent to go around. It becomes clear the most important talent is the one that you get to use before your opponent. All rallies by definition start on the first 3 balls, so if you can have a significant advantage in this area, any other talents your opponent might have stop mattering, because they don't get to use them.

Chinese rubbers are used because they are well optimised for this sort of play. The players don't play this way because Hurricane rubbers have some sort of magic property when playing like this. They use Hurricane rubbers because, as it turns out, that part of the game is already the most important.
 
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The OP’s third point is the only one that matters. China is dominant because there is a huge passion for table tennis and there is more of a professional industry around it.

If South America and Europe were super passionate about TT instead of football/soccer then we would obsessing over which blades and rubbers that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Rinaldo are using.
 
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They are available, but you don't get subsided for it unless you're Chinese and the price of it is as much as hell . So you can't get to play with it in long terms unless you're Bill Gates or Cristiano Ronaldo :/

why not?

TT Pros budget is easily in the thousands of dollars per month.
a couple of H3 national BS is nothing compared to the great scheme of total costs
 
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The OP’s third point is the only one that matters. China is dominant because there is a huge passion for table tennis and there is more of a professional industry around it.

If South America and Europe were super passionate about TT instead of football/soccer then we would obsessing over which blades and rubbers that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Rinaldo are using.

well, team sports, they train a 1 unit.

In table tennis, its individual sport, so they all scattered around.
I've seen this in many top countries.

But China is a CNT
Japan has a JNT
the T is really a Team.

Other than these 2 countries, no other country really trains more as a team than as individuals.

You are right about resource, but to me, its more the attitude of the coaches and players.
If they want to be individual, then even if someone give resource for them to train as a unit, they will still act solo
 
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You will find that Europeans TT Pros trains more at the club (pro club) than as a unit.
They hardly get together.

Same as Taiwan, they do have the "national training centre", but it is more solo work there too.
Ie Cheng I Ching has her own coach/training partner. She will train with other players, but she is pretty much solo
 
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China just has a superior training system. It comes at a cost to the players who don't make it but it will produce the best players in the world. The players start young, can play 6-8 hours a day, have great coaching and an abundance of practice partners. No other country can come close when compared to China in those areas. Where I grew up, literally no one within 1 hours driving distance played and if I were willing to travel, I could maybe play a grand total of 4 hours a week. I would have to drive 2 hours one way for mediocre coaching. Even if I wanted to become a serious player as a kid, there was absolutely no way it could have happened as playing time and opportunities would have been so limited. If you look at a lot of the better players outside of China, they have relatives who play so that helps with being able to put in the required practice time as a kid to become good. They also tend to be rich so they can hire lots of coaches to help out with the players development. Many people who turned into good players had live-in coaches.
 
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I don't want to brag but I called it months ago, and now Butterfly developed 09C and Ovtcharov wo FZD using it and talked about it later on.

You aren't the first to say that tacky rubber makes a difference - I say it a lot too and my friend who is a top level coach says it all the time. But many Koreans and JNT players are using tacky rubber and even with the new rubber, Dima beat Fan 4-3 in the 7th which he did 2 or 3 years earlier. Then lost to Ma Long like he always does. And Timo has been playing interesting matches, but not necessarily beating the Chinese. So the question is whether you want to make the point that the rubber helps with pushing short (it does, and yes you are right) or whether you want to argue that is the big reason that China outperforms the world (well, let us see if the results change substantially with everyone using H3 or Dignics 09C). Pitchford and Gauzy are pushing Xu Xin in single matches and they aren't using sticky rubber.
 
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Like NextLevel and laistrogian wrote, it's a numbers game. The Chinese team draws from a bigger pool of players, so they're more likely to find the best talent. There are factors that explain this, like state support, and factors that are explained by it, like more opportunity to play and coach. But the size of the player pool is the determining factor. The other key number is years. The US or India could make big investments in tt starting today, but it would still take a trailblazer generation and then a few cycles of younger players outcompeting older ones to build a powerhouse like the CNT.
 
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A lot of young players are training in soccer academy. Where is next Messi?

Fang Bo fall should tell y'all something

1unit
Body work
No mercy
Money
Dedication
Surveys

But last is the most important you can't buy talent so
Lin Jun Yu
Harimoto
Mima Ito
Can win Tokyo 2020
 
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