T2 Diamond 2019 | Malaysia

Lin Yun Ju is ahead of schedule. Want Chuqin and Xu Xin on base.

I don't know how people are getting the take away from this as FZD being in trouble.

Having come out of a genuine loss of form, he's moving much more sharply now and playing shots with much more intent.

Having then 4:0ed through Hugo, LGY and XX. This seems like a thoroughly decent recovery to me.

All I get from this is that LYJ is pretty legit, and we'll see how he survives more detailed CNT scrutiny (I think he will do better than Harimoto, his game is just all round fundamentally more solid, less... gimmicky?).

LJK ML and FZD scalps in the same tournament. IMO, it is a bigger seismic event in TT than Harimoto's 2018 Japan Open exploits. And this kid also does not have any apparent weaknesses in his game. Well done LJY for this fabulous win !!!

drunix80 said:

Nobody is burying FZD. It is his results that is doing it to him. I believe any smart person knows what fate CNT players go through once they start losing consistently to foreigners.

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We are talking about FZD dude, FZD. I don't know if you realize. Comparing him with unsuccessful chinese players, you probably don't realize.


LYJ played superbly in this tournament. He's not like Harimoto, CNT will probably have more troubles with him. Next important tournaments will be very interesting.

Luke James said:

We are talking about FZD dude, FZD. I don't know if you realize. Comparing him with unsuccessful chinese players, you probably don't realize.


LYJ played superbly in this tournament. He's not like Harimoto, CNT will probably have more troubles with him. Next important tournaments will be very interesting.

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Yes dude I realize we are talking about FZD. Do you also realize FZD has not achieved anything realistic in CNT's bigger scheme of things so far.

drunix80 said:

Yes dude I realize we are talking about FZD. Do you also realize FZD has not achieved anything realistic in CNT's bigger scheme of things so far.

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Hasn't he shown he can win WTTC or Olympics? Don't forget he was 2 points away from winning 2017 WTTC. He was in 2 finals of China National Games. The player he lost to was ML. He also has been maybe as consistent as ML against foreigners for years now. And yet you're comparing him with players like Hao Shuai, Chen Qi and others.
He's just in a bad period since his lost at WTTC. And short minded people like you already start saying he is starting to fade away. This is just bullshit just give him some time and he will prove you wrong.

Also XX is in a good period and everyone is praising him, forgetting already that he lost against Gauzy at 2019 WTTC. You people think on such a short time period....

I will be the first to sign on .. I felt the whole decision on personnel was wrong .. they should have let Adam commentate and let this guy run the mike at the stadium ... who cares what bs he says there ....

I could not believe what was coming out of his mouth ... how can say on air "Bernadette Szocs probably spent more time doing make up than warming up" and get away with it ? ... most of the stuff coming out was cringeworthy but that topped anything he said ...

also those stupid post match questions !! can they atleast ask Adam to write the questions down for them ... I know Adam has his flaws but at least he does not ruin it like this ... "what did you make of your final match" .. seriously ? .. have some respect for the elite athletes and come prepared with questions ...

RidTheKid said:

The Kid is for real. And I HATE that f*****g commentator! He sucks all the joy out of watching the matches. Can we make a petition to never have him ruining more matches in the future?

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Luke James said:

Hasn't he shown he can win WTTC or Olympics? Don't forget he was 2 points away from winning 2017 WTTC. He was in 2 finals of China National Games. The player he lost to was ML. He also has been maybe as consistent as ML against foreigners for years now. And yet you're comparing him with players like Hao Shuai, Chen Qi and others.
He's just in a bad period since his lost at WTTC. And short minded people like you already start saying he is starting to fade away. This is just bullshit just give him some time and he will prove you wrong.

Also XX is in a good period and everyone is praising him, forgetting already that he lost against Gauzy at 2019 WTTC. You people think on such a short time period....

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Frankly FZD has always been a huge talent but now he is around 22. CNT prepared him for an eternity to take over mantle of ML once ML's power started to fade. That time is exactly now. But his performance has never been at a lower point than this. Regarding this tournament , I think only his performance against LGY was good. XX seemed visibly tired and the match against Calderano was quite close irrespective of what scores might say.

The male Commentator was chosen for his conservative style to the general audience. He performed appropriately.

Adam Bobrow, as sideline commentator, was chosen to add a party atmosphere to the arena. He performed appropriately.

It was a good balance for the tt entertainment show that was displayed.

drunix80 said:

Frankly FZD has always been a huge talent but now he is around 22. CNT prepared him for an eternity to take over mantle of ML once ML's power started to fade. That time is exactly now. And he performance has never been at a lower point than this. Regarding this tournament , I think only his performance against LGY was good. XX seemed visibly tired and the match against Calderano was quite close irrespective of what score might say.

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Correct but 22 is still young. Also his loss at 2019 WTTC probably affected him a lot mentally. But it's just a matter of time until he recovers. Give him time.

Loopadoop said:

The male Commentator was chosen for his conservative style to the general audience. He performed appropriately.

Adam Bobrow, as sideline commentator, was chosen to add a party atmosphere to the arena. He performed appropriately.

It was a good balance for the tt entertainment show that was displayed.

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I am not sure but it seems T2 (and not the ITTF ) called the shots regarding choice of commentators/presenters and so on. Adam was likely added later to the mix by ITTF.

zeio said:

Weikert said back in 2014 that TV broadcasters didn't want to carry table tennis because they didn't know how long matches could last. T2 offers an alternative.

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I don't think table tennis is going to be a mainstream sport anyways. Doesn't make much sense of TV broadcasters complaining about how long table tennis games take when there are sports like Golf, Tennis etc being broadcast. The reason being people do not care about the time and there are enough people watching. Even if they change the rules to make each set a total of 5 points to reduce the game time by half in-order to make it "more compliant" for TV broadcast, I doubt the TV viewership is going to change by much or a whole bunch of sponsor's going to flock to the game.

drunix80 said:

Yes dude I realize we are talking about FZD. Do you also realize FZD has not achieved anything realistic in CNT's bigger scheme of things so far.

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What exactly has he not done other than beat Ma Long when it counts? (which lets face it, the CNT is probably not fussed about).

I agree, he hasn't achieved as much as maybe we'd have liked. But you have to take into context, that's because Ma Long has won everything else. And given Ma Long is almost certainly going to the 2020 Olympics short of being actually injured during that timing. There really isn't alot of competition when it comes to "Anything realistic".

Given that, Ma Long as won the last 3 world championships, the last Olympics as well as the 2017 National Championships. That doesn't leave alot for anyone else to win.

Of anything else of value, FZD has won the 2016 and 2018 World cups (and wasn't there in 2017 when China did not win it at all), the 2016 national championships and for what it's worth 11-0ed the last marvellous 12, which is kinda dedicated to selecting between CNT members.

The only thing of value that hasn't been won between those two, were the 2017 World Championships, and since Ovtcharov isn't really relevant to CNT positions that basically goes to noone. And the 2018 National Championships won by LKJ, who let's face it, is not really in a position to vie for a 2020 olympics showing.

That means of anyone realistically vieing for a 2020 Olympic position, Ma Long (who is basically garanteed) and FZD are actually the only people who have achieved "anything realistic".

See you in 2 months time, I'll be back !!!

So conservative commentators are allowed to say sexist statements on air and get away with it ? ... I don't know how you can say he performed appropriately ... none of the commentators performed appropriately ... in my dictionary conservative does not mean making statements that are considered atrocious in this day and age ... if anything it should be more sober

1. they showed little awareness about the game ... other than just repeating the cliche "queen of hearts" and "cloud walker"
... which as one of my friends put it appropriately , a cheap imitation of WWE ... you never heard them talking about any relevant thing going on in the table tennis world .. even the fact that LYS had defeated FZD recently was not pointed out

2. they did not do any research about the players ... again related to #1

3. forget about 1 and 2 , they could not even analyze what was going on properly and was choosing to stay quiet when neither of them knew what was going on ... I remember the guy going to jill and asking her to compare the games of Ding Ning and Manyu ... all she could say was they play similar .. really ? ... even as somebody who has not played at the elite level I can say Manyu plays the game very differently than Ding Ning , has way more variations on serve , moves faster than DN and has a different backhand ...

Loopadoop said:

The male Commentator was chosen for his conservative style to the general audience. He performed appropriately.

Adam Bobrow, as sideline commentator, was chosen to add a party atmosphere to the arena. He performed appropriately.

It was a good balance for the tt entertainment show that was displayed.

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As a commentator you relate to the target audience established by the promoter.

The technical aspects can be discussed here by the experts at commentator criticism.

Looks like LIN Yun-Ju is the real deal in future. Unlike Harimoto his game is complete, there is no real weakness. His FH technique is much better.

Agressive Looper vs Counterattacker (FZD vs LGY)
they both play similar styles
Backhand flick oriented LYJ v Ma long who prefers to push and touch more returns:
They both play similar table tennis
LYJ deceives Fan with a soft half long flick:
he hits the ball so hard
Ma Long wins a point with a backhand with the slow motion clearly showing that he changed the arc completely with spin (Against LYJ):
he couldn't hang on for that 2nd one.
In all my diffent sports commentary I have never seen somebody come up so young:
you literally commentated on harimoto 2 days ago.

Honestly, half of these changes could probably be noticed by somebody that doesn't even play table tennis, especially with the slow mo replays, This commentator is the definition of clueless, most of his comments were off topic or just fake exitement, why is he here.

Look to other sports such as cricket, where most matches were commentated by ex international players or coaches, people who actually know what they're on about that the audience want to listen to.

mrk said:

Looks like LIN Yun-Ju is the real deal in future. Unlike Harimoto his game is complete, there is no real weakness. His FH technique is much better.

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He didn't win with superior reflexes. He made and returned quality shots vs both Ma Long and FZD.

Hysteresis said:

I think that's a bit unfair.

They wanted to lengthen the rallies.

But now want to shorten the length of the overall match (eg by fewer points played).

The unfortunate side effect of the latter is that there is now more upsets.

I think both changes make sense in context of making the sport more TV friendly.

Watching a full match of elite athletes not being able to return serve some 30% of the time is maybe not the most exciting thing for the casual watcher. I can understand the desire for longer rallies, requiring more athleticism more frequenty.

And while i would prefer longer matches with fewer upsets, that's not what the popularity of the sport warrants at the moment, so I can understand the tradeoff for higher variance too.

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I don't think it is unfair, as they are approaching the problem with the wrong understanding of the problem.

They think in order to get more viewership, they need to make the game more interesting.
But obviously they are changing way too much things and hoping to find a fix.

Do they know why viewership are lower now
Do they know what is the biggest issues on the ground?

Many countries don't treat TT stars as celebrities and for commercial value you must start there.
Not some - lets make the ball bigger so we can slow the match down wise decision