Why is it that Asians are pretty much the only choppers?

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After years of watching table tennis, I noticed a trend among choppers: 99.999% of them were Asian, or at least the top choppers were Asian:
-Ma Te
-Joo Se Hyuk
-Chris Xu
-Hitomi Sato
-Masato Shiono
-Li Jie
-Chen Weixing
-Ding Song
-Angela Guan
-Han Ying
-Yuto Mutamatsu
-Jian Li
-Hu Limei
-Hou Yingchao
-Chen Xinhua
-Li Gun Sang
-Hiroshi Shibutani
-Koji Matsushita
-Many more internationally and at the Chinese provincial and local levels

Of course there are exceptions like Ruwen Filus but by far the majority of choppers are Asian. Can anyone shed light on this matter? Perhaps is it just a playing style native to Asia, or does it have to do with cultural differences and similarities?
 
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Depends how high up in levels you are talking about...

Viktoria Pavlovich
Gionis
Ruwen Filus
thomas bennborn
paul pinkewich
gregg letts
maxim chaplygin
gustaf erikson
ganna gapanova
evgenui chtechinne (whatever the spelling is)
daniel kleinart

Anyway, there's a few!

Eastern europe has a lot. I think it has more to do with available coaches and number of players, making it a % game.
 
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Your over thinking it. The way I see it, Table tennis is more developed in Asia, so there will be more high level Asian choppers.

Exactly. This is the reason.. In Asia there will be more of everything. Actually over last 20 years if you restrict attention to world top 100 there MAY be about as Europeans (especially eastern European). Anyway I can think of quite a few. Maybe I'm wrong about the exact numbers. I would bet a lot that the ratio of defenders to attackers is similar everywhere.

Also, the OP forgot two of the most fun to watch defenders from Asia, the two Korean women defenders who played doubles together. They had epic battles against Chinese opponents. Sadly retired now.

 
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Depends on when he came over from China (I don't know), but to me he's in the same ballpark as Wang Yang or Wang Xi would be since they developed and learnt their styles in Asia.

I would definitely consider Chen Weixing as Asian. He was actually born in China, not mongolia. There is a region in northern China called "Inner Mongolia", however this region is not part of Mongolia. It is part of China.

 
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I would definitely consider Chen Weixing as Asian. He was actually born in China, not mongolia. There is a region in northern China called "Inner Mongolia", however this region is not part of Mongolia. It is part of China.

Yes, I did some research, he came to Europe when he was around 27, played in Germany and Austria, got his citizenship and then played for the Austrian NT. So I agree, players like him Yang Wang, Xi Wang etc are Asian trained choppers.

 
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Just to focus on the OP's omissions of three famous recent Korean defenders on this post...

Yup, dude dun plumb forgot to mention Pak Hyn Mi and Kim Kyoung Ah... not to mention the current longtime pro Seoh Hyo Weon, who also made the cover of a Men's magazine famous for its membership gawking at the partially dressed women in its pages...

[Begin Sarcasm Ops] So, depending on which individual you meet, the OP could be accused of racism against Koreans and blatant non-inclusive attitude and practices...

... or OP could be accused (if OP is a male) of not really being very male to a point where the authorities could or should take dude's man-card on the basis of non-male tendencies. [/End Sarcasm and Teasing]

Fortuanately, Der_Echte is not from either camp of thought, but is more of the one of facts and reasoning. (if it isn't a matter of opinion, and I frequently discuss pure opinion) OP stated 99.99%...

I would like to see the data that indicates 99.99 %... I would also like to wager several large boxes of Cheese-its that the real data would show much less than that number... and would like to see OP's definitions and performance peramaters of what would merit inclusion in the data set.

Very good question Baal poses, is it WR100 or better... what is the standard used here??? Should be clearly defined and articulated. Once any such wide ranging feinitions are established and data colloected would be much lower than 99.99%, and if we are talking about any player of any standard that would take years of training... then I wager it would be closer to 50 than 99.99

So we then look for what would be reasonable explainations for the data given, since it contains all underlying conditions. Perhaps the singlemost factor to consider is the fact that there are simply many more players of Asian heritage participating in the sport of Table Tennis.

Just about everyone replying has touched upon these concepts and concluded that the OP's post is more opinion than anything, does not clearly identify and define the standards of what goes into the dataset, and excludes (intentionally or by forgetfulness) some obvious ones who would be in the dataset by many people's definitions of standards.
 
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Would Chen Weixing be considered Asian or European ?

That is a very question that would need to be defined by the OP for inclusion or exclusion in his dataset.

I offered the definition if Asian heritage, which for these purposes could reasonably be defined as being Asian born in Asia to include being born of 2 Asian parents outside Asia (2nd gen). We could make arguements for including 3rd gen or whatever... but certainly up to and including 2nd gen Asian would be reasonable for the definition.
 
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OP forgot all the LP players from Irkutsk TTC Siberia over the years on Dmitrij Raspopin's youtube channel...

Dmitrij used to post on TTD very often about his club and players... it was a HIT and anyone long on teh forum should remember.

Here is one vid from his channel from a few yrs back...
 
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That is a very question that would need to be defined by the OP for inclusion or exclusion in his dataset.

I offered the definition if Asian heritage, which for these purposes could reasonably be defined as being Asian born in Asia to include being born of 2 Asian parents outside Asia (2nd gen). We could make arguements for including 3rd gen or whatever... but certainly up to and including 2nd gen Asian would be reasonable for the definition.

Definition for a thread like this is where you learned to play. Lilly Zhang for example learned to play in the US and is American. Harmimoto is Japanese. However Chen Weixing is Asian.

But the entire thread is based on a false premise for all the reasons noted.. Now, if OP had said penholders, he would have a point.

 
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It's like the Americans playing basketball and the Brazilians playing soccer.
I think this is due to the different body types of the human.

No, it is not body type, it is tradition and coaching infrastructure. So many little kids in Brazil dream of futbol, have opportunities to play, are exposed at a young age, etc. And if they are great they can make a good living doing it. If somebody shows talent that talent will be cultivated. They will in Germany too. Same with basketball in the US (and now in some other countries too, like Serbia). It's why Belgium and Netherlands produce so many road cyclists. It is definitely why China produces so many TT players (and why Vietnam, for ecample, doesnt). The Dominican Republic and Cuba produce huge numbers of great baseball players but no futbol players of note.

 
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OP forgot all the LP players from Irkutsk TTC Siberia over the years on Dmitrij Raspopin's youtube channel...

Dmitrij used to post on TTD very often about his club and players... it was a HIT and anyone long on teh forum should remember.

Here is one vid from his channel from a few yrs back...

Great vid, that fella was well and truly frustrated!!!

 
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Just to focus on the OP's omissions of three famous recent Korean defenders on this post...

Yup, dude dun plumb forgot to mention Pak Hyn Mi and Kim Kyoung Ah... not to mention the current longtime pro Seoh Hyo Weon, who also made the cover of a Men's magazine famous for its membership gawking at the partially dressed women in its pages...

[Begin Sarcasm Ops] So, depending on which individual you meet, the OP could be accused of racism against Koreans and blatant non-inclusive attitude and practices...

... or OP could be accused (if OP is a male) of not really being very male to a point where the authorities could or should take dude's man-card on the basis of non-male tendencies. [/End Sarcasm and Teasing]

Fortuanately, Der_Echte is not from either camp of thought, but is more of the one of facts and reasoning. (if it isn't a matter of opinion, and I frequently discuss pure opinion) OP stated 99.99%...

I would like to see the data that indicates 99.99 %... I would also like to wager several large boxes of Cheese-its that the real data would show much less than that number... and would like to see OP's definitions and performance peramaters of what would merit inclusion in the data set.

Very good question Baal poses, is it WR100 or better... what is the standard used here??? Should be clearly defined and articulated. Once any such wide ranging feinitions are established and data colloected would be much lower than 99.99%, and if we are talking about any player of any standard that would take years of training... then I wager it would be closer to 50 than 99.99

So we then look for what would be reasonable explainations for the data given, since it contains all underlying conditions. Perhaps the singlemost factor to consider is the fact that there are simply many more players of Asian heritage participating in the sport of Table Tennis.

Just about everyone replying has touched upon these concepts and concluded that the OP's post is more opinion than anything, does not clearly identify and define the standards of what goes into the dataset, and excludes (intentionally or by forgetfulness) some obvious ones who would be in the dataset by many people's definitions of standards.

Obviously Der Echte is very ignorant and quick to judge. Moreover, he/she does not implement correct English structure when writing his/her posts. Your subject/verb agreement is totally off. And secondly, I too am a Korean who is living in America. My last name is Kim and both of my parents were born in Korea and raised there.

 
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