The counterloop era?

ZFT

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First of all, I really enjoyed watching the World Teams Championship just completed.

Upon replaying, I focussed my attention on the first 5 balls and the technical beauty of the counterloop when executed perfectly:

- On serve, the typical setup being FH pendulum half long with slight sidespin; and then moving pre-emptively to counterloop a chiquita or:

- On receive, a tight half long short push to hopefully getting a weak open up. Throwing in chiquita to keep the opponent off balance.

For me, the game strategy has shifted ever so slightly away from the first-in overpowering pure attacker toward more reactive counterloopers emphasising strong short game coupled with footwork explosiveness to be able to quickly take one or two steps back to exchange topspin with enough quality (if it gets to the 5th ball).

This has created a no man’s land on the 3rd or 4th ball where if you are late, weight on the back foot or a step behind, you would be committed to a weak topspin open up that just gets absolutely crushed with the counterloop.

Is this the same thing other members here have noticed? Any other trends?
 

ZFT

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No man’s land can also be described as a zone of uncertainty for those not familiar with the term.

Where you are not sure if you will be getting a strong topspin opening so you need to be slightly away from the table or whether you need to come in closer to deal with a short push and/or perform that short snappy backhand loop over the table.
 

ZFT

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I think there was wider range of spinning ability across different players causing a lot of errors in the initial set of matches while the players were getting accustomed to each other.

The plastic ball seems to have taken the variation out for attackers as once they got a handle and gauge of their opponents topspin that’s when those longer rallies were more common.

There were some absolutely cracker 4th and 5th sets once settled in!

On the ladies side, Han Ying made some top level attackers look amateurish with her variation ability with SPs. It’s as though they drill exclusively with the same backspin and topspin multiball exercises and forgotten how to deal with sidespin, chop blocks, empty balls outside service receive.
 
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ZFT

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Yeah very true, I’ve had the fortunate experience trying to block third ball loop kills from RC ~2300-2400 rated ex-provincial level players and the way their ball viciously kicks forward, dips and the energy behind it is ridiculous. Even knowing where it’s going it still just flies out.

These guys at the worlds are in the 2600-3000 range, it’s a whole other level.
 
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i bet you Ma Long could also play till he is 40.

People like Han Ying, Wang Yang and Shan Xiaona were in the Chinese national team, not at the same level as Ma Long. They were probably in the B national team.

Imagine Ma Long decided to play for Germany, he can easily play into his mid 40s I am sure.

 
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First of all, I really enjoyed watching the World Teams Championship just completed.

Upon replaying, I focussed my attention on the first 5 balls and the technical beauty of the counterloop when executed perfectly:

- On serve, the typical setup being FH pendulum half long with slight sidespin; and then moving pre-emptively to counterloop a chiquita or:

- On receive, a tight half long short push to hopefully getting a weak open up. Throwing in chiquita to keep the opponent off balance.

For me, the game strategy has shifted ever so slightly away from the first-in overpowering pure attacker toward more reactive counterloopers emphasising strong short game coupled with footwork explosiveness to be able to quickly take one or two steps back to exchange topspin with enough quality (if it gets to the 5th ball).

This has created a no man’s land on the 3rd or 4th ball where if you are late, weight on the back foot or a step behind, you would be committed to a weak topspin open up that just gets absolutely crushed with the counterloop.

Is this the same thing other members here have noticed? Any other trends?

The noticeable difference is FZD. He hit the ball noticeably later than usual. And he plays a bit further away from the table than before. I wonder if it is because of the new FZD ALC blade which is softer than his old Golden Viscaria.

 
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I saw a video by the german tt federation on tactical developments of the game and they also said that the new ball and equipment means that attacking first is not as much of an advantage as it used to be and that it can be a good strategy to lure the opponent into attacking first, basically causing him to hit a weak opening loop that you can counter hard (obviously if your push is too weak and he can loop kill it it is not great).

They also said that statistical evaluation showed that Chiquita is not as effective as you think (unless you are extremely good at it and hit with super high quality like Lin yun ju) because it can be countered hard if it is low quality and that pushing deep is not as bad as it used to be if you hit it with good quality and not too predictable.
 
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But I think at the lower amateur level opening up with loop first still usually is an advantage because many amateur players can't counterloop consistently and will only block a loop.
 
But I think at the lower amateur level opening up with loop first still usually is an advantage because many amateur players can't counterloop consistently and will only block a loop.
I this depend on that we often play close to the table so there is no time. At least for me I need to back a bit to be able to counter loop.

Cheers
L-zr

 
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The thing that absolutely blows my mind is that - in light of the physical demands of the 'new' style of the game - Timo Boll and Chuang Chih-Yuan are still mixing it at the very top in their 40s. These guys are superhuman freaks!

It's important how much and serious injuries you collect when you get to 40. Timo has had pretty bad luck in this regards and it really shows. I did not follow CCY so much but I don't remember him complaining too much about injuries. And you can look at his game now and when he was 30 and look at Timo on the other hand... CCY is almost the same while Timo is a lot different.

 
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I this depend on that we often play close to the table so there is no time. At least for me I need to back a bit to be able to counter loop.

Cheers
L-zr

I think pros are really good at back and forward movement because it really requires agility to move like that from a wider stance while side stepping is pretty easy and natural from that position.

Those pros are really good at stepping in to get to the short ball and then almost jumping back to get into position to loop.

Most amateurs will probably have trouble doing that movement. For me the stepping in is not so hard but moving back very fast from a normal ready position is pretty hard.

 
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NDH

says Spin to win!
the material got way faster as did the sport in my opinion.
That could be an Indicator why we see less rallys.
In Women´s Singles you see way more,but that might only my observation.

I disagree with this.

I think the 38mm Cellular Balls with Speed Glued rubbers was the fastest the game has ever been.

Everything they've done since then (40mm+ plastic balls, no speed glue) has been designed to slow the game down.

I think the players are more explosive in general, and newer rubbers and blades are quick - But I don't think it's faster than it was in the late 90's early 2000's.

As for the "counter loop" question - I'd agree...... But only at the professional level (I say that as other comments seem to refer to the amateur level).

Even at very high amateur standards, you simply don't see a huge amount of consistent counter looping.

The game at that sort of level hasn't really changed a huge amount.

Whilst the spin is less than 20 years ago, it's still the killer at local league standard.

A player who can consistently spin the ball on both FH and BH in a controlled way is winning the vast majority of their games playing a comfortable style.

 
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