Return of International TT Matches

Takkyu_wa_inochi said:

Mima is still young, and working to find new ways to improve. I believe she can make it, one day, and hopefully become a world or olympic champion

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2015
R16 4-0 Ivancan, QF 4-2 Liu Jia, SF 4-2 Li Jiao, F 0-4 LSW
QF Li Jiao 4-2 ZYL


2016
R16 4-2 Samara, QF 4-1 Ito, SF 4-2 FTW, F 4-0 CIC

2017
R128 bye, R64 3-0 Sawettabut, R32 3-0 Lee Zion, R16 3-0 CIC, QF 0-2 -> 3-2 DN, SF 3-0 ZYL, F 3-0 CM


R128 4-0 Oshonaike, R64 4-0 Sawettabut, R32 4-1 Chen Szu-yu, R16 4-0 Mario Xiao, QF 4-0 FTW, SF 1-4 DN


2020
R16 4-1 JJH, QF 4-1 Chen Syu-yu, SF 2-4 SYS, 3rd place 4-0 HY

not sure what you're trying to say. Kasumi is soon going to retire (after Olympics). Hirano was fantastic in 2017. Nothing since but her name is left in gold in the books.

Mima may still write her name in gold. For Kasumi its too late

Just a recap of how far they've reached, for future reference.

Doing over complicated serves can be counter-productive. Have you noticed the times in that match against SYS when Mima Ito failed to proceed on her 3rd ball attack after the serve and completely missed? This does not happen very often on the very high level of professional table tennis.

So many times in table tennis if you do over-complicated spin on your serves, then you are often making even more difficult for yourself because that same spin comes back to you making the 3rd ball attack even harder. And hence there were quite a few misses where Mima Ito missed a very good chance of a 3rd ball attack.

And see how fairly simple the serves are of either SYS or Cheng Meng. I'm sure they're more complicated than they look. But at the same time they're not making too difficult for themselves when it comes to 3rd ball attack it seems by doing more simple serves.

bzing said:

Doing over complicated serves can be counter-productive. Have you noticed the times in that match against SYS when Mima Ito failed to proceed on her 3rd ball attack after the serve and completely missed? This does not happen very often on the very high level of professional table tennis.

So many times in table tennis if you do over-complicated spin on your serves, then you are often making even more difficult for yourself because that same spin comes back to you making the 3rd ball attack even harder. And hence there were quite a few misses where Mima Ito missed a very good chance of a 3rd ball attack.

And see how fairly simple the serves are of either SYS or Cheng Meng. I'm sure they're more complicated than they look. But at the same time they're not making too difficult for themselves when it comes to 3rd ball attack it seems by doing more simple serves.

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At the amateur levels, sure. There is no way a pro player is doing a serve without having a third ball plan. SYS just returned them shockingly well. Having a different looking wind up as Ito does, does not make a serve more "complicated".

zyu81 said:

At the amateur levels, sure. There is no way a pro player is doing a serve without having a third ball plan. SYS just returned them shockingly well. Having a different looking wind up as Ito does, does not make a serve more "complicated".

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It's not about the serve that is complicated per se stupid fool but the spin. The spin that came back at those points that Mima Ito missed were mostly a downward side spin which is more difficult to do a successful 3rd ball attack than the more simple serves of either SYS or CM.

bzing said:

It's not about the serve that is complicated per se stupid fool but the spin. The spin that came back at those points that Mima Ito missed were mostly a downward side spin which is more difficult to do a successful 3rd ball attack than the more simple serves of either SYS or CM.

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Downwards side spin, so, you mean side top? And this is something new, not what she has done her entire career? And she should abandon it in game 6 because she had a few unforced errors late in the match?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RceyIBbC08U

I have watched the match and saw very few instances of Ito "completely missing" her third ball, until a few in the sixth game where she had completely imploded. What I saw was a match in which, in the previous 5 games leading up to that point, Ito was winning almost all of her points off the third ball after an aggressive mix of side top serves that got a weak response. As she has made an entire career out of doing. Sure, you can't win them all, but that was her winning strategy. So I am curious how you see the game differently and think that Ito should have simplified her serves so that she would end up in the rally with SYS and surely be at a disadvantage? And she should have abandoned what was working for 5 games and an entire career just because of a few unforced errors towards the end and a few serves that bounced too high and got power flipped by SYS?


Can you explain what makes Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha' serves simple?

Before you call me a stupid fool, you should understand how point construction works in table tennis.

Well the top Chinese players like Ma Long and even it goes back to Zhang Jike era in general, that what they have learnt is especially during the rallies (but this also applies for serve & 3rd ball) it's often more beneficial to "slow down" the pace, if the ball coming towards you is fast. And you can also notice the similar thing in CM & SYS game in a way where they don't always go all wild on every shot like Mima Ito does.

And you can often see this when watching either ZJK or ML where they slow down, or vice-versa they accelerate the ball a lot when it's slow. And this seems to be effective. Same goes for the serves. The best serves to take advantage on by doing a 3rd ball attack is the one the hasn't got too much acceleration on the ball. It's still possible to smash a 3rd ball after a fast serve, but you see it so very often how many times it goes out in professional table tennis matches. I've seen in too many times.

Look at Mima Ito especially the end of the 6th game. Two of her serves have got loads of acceleration there and she tries to smash it. Well it almost makes one say -> what did you think it's gonna happen when you serve a fast serve like that, it's not gonna be as easy to smash as with a more steady type of serve. Sure enough she missed those for that reason.

If that's her game then it's fine, we'll see maybe she'll hone down her technique of 3rd ball even better in the future and master smashing even the type of balls that she missed in this match we'll see.

bzing said:

Well the top Chinese players like Ma Long and even it goes back to Zhang Jike era in general, that what they have learnt is especially during the rallies (but this also applies for serve & 3rd ball) it's often more beneficial to "slow down" the pace, if the ball coming towards you is fast. And you can also notice the similar thing in CM & SYS game in a way where they don't always go all wild on every shot like Mima Ito does.

And you can often see this when watching either ZJK or ML where they slow down, or vice-versa they accelerate the ball a lot when it's slow. And this seems to be effective. Same goes for the serves. The best serves to take advantage on by doing a 3rd ball attack is the one the hasn't got too much acceleration on the ball. It's still possible to smash a 3rd ball after a fast serve, but you see it so very often how many times it goes out in professional table tennis matches. I've seen in too many times.

Look at Mima Ito especially the end of the 6th game. Two of her serves have got loads of acceleration there and she tries to smash it. Well it almost makes one say -> what did you think it's gonna happen when you serve a fast serve like that, it's not gonna be as easy to smash as with a more steady type of serve. Sure enough she missed those for that reason.

If that's her game then it's fine, we'll see maybe she'll hone down her technique of 3rd ball even better in the future and master smashing even the type of balls that she missed in this match we'll see.

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First you were talking about the spin of the serve, now you are talking about the speed.

So what is your suggestion for what Ito should have done: serve slower, not use sidespin, or both? Or something else? I suppose if she does any of those things, there will be no trade-offs in the return she gets from SYS? Because if she serves slower and without sidespin, SYS is just going to push it back, right? And I am still wondering why she would magically and suddenly decide to serve less aggressively and look for the third ball when it had been working to her advantage all match and all of her career? It is easy to say after you have seen the results but it is not as simple as "slow down your serve and you will get an easier to kill 3rd ball". That's ignoring all the changes you are going to get in serve return.

Well if going all wild on every stroke and smashing even the fast serves clearly isn't working here, then unless she decides to keep doing that and try to nail this type of strategy down, I would take the leaf out of SYS book and do a more passive return and try to make the opponent make a mistake.

It's not just the spin as you pointed out, the speed also. But I did mention spin because this also caused her to miss. The high acceleration ball on top of already a complicated side spin makes it very hard to smash it effectively.

But not at all shots she should be aggressive most of the time. It seems like there were too many points that being aggressive all the time was counter-productive.

The most effective thing in table tennis is unpredictability. It's why many top players like ML etc are able to variate the game and totally put off the opponent with chop-blocks and not just constant looping.

If either the opponent serve is fast which happened many times in the match, she should've returned it perhaps with not the full power but 60-70% to get the ball back, I think it's a lot easier then to go for a full power shot the next one after rather than trying to smash a fast serve. But what Mima Ito was doing there so often was going for fast shots when she was receiving fast serves. It's just counter-productive and very predictable.

Nobody says to not try to variate different speeds & spin on serves. There's many times that SYS did fast serve but she did not smash it all wild if she didn't feel comfortable with it enough like Mima Ito does. It seems to be counterproductive to respond with a fast smash to an already highly accelerated ball.

Mima still has a chance to get some revenge and play some CNT players again for GF in a few days. I am confident she'll do better.

Somersault reverse tomahawk for even more power!

Ito: An acrobat who is distracted by table tennis.

Pitchford 2-1 CCY
Pitch played well in G4 having trailed 1:5. Overall, he was off to a bumpy start in the match due to poor receiving but somehow got by in G2. CCY led in most of the games until the middlegame by denying Pitch from BH rallies and with those 3rd ball kills. Pitch responded by playing into his FH to great effect. The idea is simple. Get him to move to create openings.

Opponents on the court, training partners off the court.


MLin: We'll get you a Chinese husband after you retire.


Ito: I've got some tributes here. Give it a try.

Liam Pitchford keeps improving and playing like a top 5 player in the world, pressures the highly ranked players. Hopefully can win a major tournament like a World Cup to really create attention amongst Asian Powerhouse teams.