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People seem to watch too many highlight videos of top players. Maybe everyone should record themselves playing more, it'll humble you. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Experience is king in table tennis. Yesterday my team and I went to practice at this other venue with some really good players, several of them were older like 50-60 years old but were top 5 or something for their age when they were younger. The best player in my team is like top 70-80ish in England and has beaten players that are top 20-30. He has a super good forehand and is very fast, probably faster than many pro players.. but he has some glaring weaknesses.
Against some players he'd look like a god, against one of those older guys yesterday he'd look so bad because that guy would just read and respond perfectly to everything he did, even though the older guy is much slower. If you didn't know anything about table tennis you'd think he's quite bad.
In Sweden we have lots of older guys from the Waldner era who are very experienced, with very good feeling for the ball. And there are so many examples of juniors who loop against block like they're FZD in the warm-up only to get utterly destroyed in serve-return or as soon as they face any kind of strange irregular ball. It happens to me a lot too.
I've seen a guy who had 4 match points against Michael Maze in the danish league (he ended up losing, but still) and has beaten top semi-pro french juniors. I've seen the same guy lose a best of 3 in practice against a player rated a fair bit lower than me. These things don't happen often, but it happens (granted training and proper matches are different).
When we're talking about rating there's always a range which varies over time, there are a lot of factors involved. But experience is king. Lots of experience in different and high level training environments plus a good technical foundation (which you'd probably get in a high level training environment) is what puts you at odds of becoming pro. Lots of experience and an unorthodox playing style that suits you may beat a technically skilled opponent that isn't experienced enough in adapting their technique to those styles.
The unorthodox player will probably hit a wall where they won't be able to beat more typically technically sound players who are experienced and adapted to those otherwise strange balls. If the technically skilled player aren't able to adapt their technique to certain balls they'll also hit a wall.
None of it is surprising or strange.
Against some players he'd look like a god, against one of those older guys yesterday he'd look so bad because that guy would just read and respond perfectly to everything he did, even though the older guy is much slower. If you didn't know anything about table tennis you'd think he's quite bad.
In Sweden we have lots of older guys from the Waldner era who are very experienced, with very good feeling for the ball. And there are so many examples of juniors who loop against block like they're FZD in the warm-up only to get utterly destroyed in serve-return or as soon as they face any kind of strange irregular ball. It happens to me a lot too.
I've seen a guy who had 4 match points against Michael Maze in the danish league (he ended up losing, but still) and has beaten top semi-pro french juniors. I've seen the same guy lose a best of 3 in practice against a player rated a fair bit lower than me. These things don't happen often, but it happens (granted training and proper matches are different).
When we're talking about rating there's always a range which varies over time, there are a lot of factors involved. But experience is king. Lots of experience in different and high level training environments plus a good technical foundation (which you'd probably get in a high level training environment) is what puts you at odds of becoming pro. Lots of experience and an unorthodox playing style that suits you may beat a technically skilled opponent that isn't experienced enough in adapting their technique to those styles.
The unorthodox player will probably hit a wall where they won't be able to beat more typically technically sound players who are experienced and adapted to those otherwise strange balls. If the technically skilled player aren't able to adapt their technique to certain balls they'll also hit a wall.
None of it is surprising or strange.