Zhang Jike comes out of retirement for 1 match today! With a twist!

Also worth noting how much ZJK varies the amount of spin on his loops and how this causes a certain amount of nets but also a lot of long balls. He does this in the match vs Joo that I posted and also in the match that the thread is about.

The match could have been decided by outside forces (CNT) but, given the slower pace of a chop, it may be that, this kind of play is something he could walk into and play well enough to take the match.

I also saw Hou Yingchao in the same tourney, but 2018 in a dark dim glary sub-200 lumens of light kind of cave of a venue play vs ex-provincial champs who were USA rated 2700 plus...

Hou made them look like USATT 500 rated basement players who couldn't return an underspin.

Hou would cut return a serve, player TRY to attack the ball... and the ball made it maybe 2 feet short of the net.

Hou would float return a loop, player would loop it almost outside the back barriers. Hou would SP chop a loop back, player would try to touch it back underspin, and ball would hit table 6 inches after player struck it.

Hou might have let up a little to make the score look better, but none of those ex-champs 2700 rated who defeated some of the bottom tier of the mid to lower WR100 players... none of those 2700 players who excelled to get to semis and finals were not even within 6-7 play levels of Hou that day.

Saw that live in person 2018 as well. I was the one who measured the light intensity of the showcase tables and raised all that ruckus about light. I watched so many pros play that tourney and I never in my LIFE saw so many pros miss shots vs each other they would normally make blindfolded. I am talking about the kinda of goofy misses we see 500 USATT beginners make. The light in the hall was not good to see a small TT ball, you could barely pickup the impact of a basketball there... and still Hou was killing it.

One would think a defender would have a very weak FH... but not this cat with the last name of Hou…

You would need to be live to see it. He hit it, it is BY-YA, you needed slo-mo to confirm for yourself that it hit the table.

Needless to say, Hou's FH is MASSIVE. Dude is not a Tiny Tim kitten sized due either. You put an axe in dude's hands and you could stack him up against the Brawny dude any day of the week.

Der_Echte said:

One would think a defender would have a very weak FH... but not this cat with the last name of Hou…

You would need to be live to see it. He hit it, it is BY-YA, you needed slo-mo to confirm for yourself that it hit the table.

Needless to say, Hou's FH is MASSIVE. Dude is not a Tiny Tim kitten sized due either. You put an axe in dude's hands and you could stack him up against the Brawny dude any day of the week.

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I thought you were going to say, Paul Bunyan!

There was also a pro-tour tourney back in the day where Ma Long faced Joo and defeated him in a very long match where Ma Long needed double digit attacks to even get a 1/2 opening to finish...

Sure, Ma Long won, but he didn't make it any further that tourney.

He had to default the rest of the tourney... he couldn't even lift his arm up shoulder height later in the day after that match.

That also tells you something of what Joo can put you through.

UpSideDownCarl said:

I thought you were going to say, Paul Bunyan!

Sent from an outdated NSA Spy Phoney-Baloney iPhony Mac-Bookie

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Carl,

I sure was wanting to say that, but most of the forum wouldn't remember that tale, I think Google deleted it.

Since we are the panic buying era, more people would be familiar with the packaging of the number one selling brand of paper towels.

We do not know official stats of the Brawny dude, but that guy shapes up to be a pretty cut and solid 6' 3' 230 lb dude. Hou is prolly less than 230, but Hou is around that hight and has a much heavier, solid build in upper body than most TT pros have.

I would bet a few cheeze-its that Hou could bench press 30 lbs more than Dmitrij Ovtcharov...

I think younger chinese play more mechanical like the robots they were trained to be But when they get older this is not longer the case. So when Young chinese play hou that plays very differently and with alot of variation i can image it cause som problems in adjusting.

RIPPER said:

At the end of the match Zhang Jike also stripped off the rubbers and signed his bat for a prize. He also sat down with the presenter for a long discussion which is something that viewers would not normally be able to see.

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Ah, I see. That could be the reason why he didn't play with his own Viscaria blade

Can anyone sumarize what was said in the interview afterwards?

I was also suprised that they did a handshake at the end instead of a fist bump or touching shoes or something like that

Also was anyone else a little bit bothered that they recorded the video from the wrong angle? Recording behind from the backhand corner means that the player hides part of the table/ball some of the time. I'd really think someone involved should have known this.

RIPPER said:

ZJK is able to beat Hou Yingchao (who beat Wang Chuqin and Liang Jingkun at the 2019 Chinese Nationals) because he is simply a much more experienced player, his variation, placement and understanding of the game is simply at a higher level that that of his younger Chinese team mates.

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I was actually surprised in the other direction. ZJK executed a single simple tactic, mostly, pinning HYC on the BH using deep FH mid-paced mid-spin level loops, very efficiently. At least, that's what I took from the game.

I think the number of BH openings don't exceed the fingers of one hand, and just one single ZJK signature BH rip.

Shirts don't lie

StehTischtennis said:

....................
At least he's still using a Hurricane and not a Tenergy like he was using in his last official game against Apolonia.

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Rubbish!
He's definitely playing with Dignics. It says so on his shirt.

This match really showed how much I miss the guy.

Tinykin said:

Rubbish!
He's definitely playing with Dignics. It says so on his shirt.

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Huh, are you joking?

Sorry, I can't tell if that's sarcasm.

If you take a look at the snapshot I posted from the match you can clearly see the DHS Hurricane rubber stamp.

StehTischtennis said:

Huh, are you joking?

Sorry, I can't tell if that's sarcasm.

If you take a look at the snapshot I posted from the match you can clearly see the DHS Hurricane rubber stamp.

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No, would any of these players use a product not made by their sponsor, of course not!.....................................
.
.Yes I'm joking

ZJK: Majority of people don't know *bleep* about table tennis

https://sports.sina.com.cn/others/pingpang/2020-04-19/doc-iirczymi7213987.shtml

Small hall is big advantage against chopper.
Ball is slower with less Spin
Big advantage for blockers too

The same match with them in big hall would be different.

Viscaria is nothing right now and they rise price
He used here super zlc?

Konrad Bak said:

Viscaria is nothing right now

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What do you mean?

JOO has played a few matches in Japanese T-League this year

https://tleague.jp/stats/player/?season=2019&id=30049

StehTischtennis said:

I was also suprised that he didn't use his trusty Viscaria, but given the Butterfly shirts and the table I think he or the match was sponsored by Butterfly.

At least he's still using a Hurricane and not a Tenergy like he was using in his last official game against Apolonia.

I still don't get how an untrained ZJK could win against someone who defeated Wang Chuqin and Liang Jingkun.

Maybe he's really effective against defenders? Can someone confirm this?

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Sent from my SM-T805 using Tapatalk

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He played quite a few matches after the Apolonia match including his comeback silver medal at the Japan Open vs Harimoto in 2018.

Takkyu_wa_inochi said:

JOO has played a few matches in Japanese T-League this year

https://tleague.jp/stats/player/?season=2019&id=30049

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Joo was simply CLTUCH MONEY in the matches I saw... he still can play at WR20 level or better.