Who do you think will win the Mens World Cup?

  • Ma Long

    Votes: 65 55.6%
  • Zhang Jike

    Votes: 31 26.5%
  • Dimitrij Ovtcharov

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • Jun Mizutani

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Chuang Chih Yuan

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Timo Boll

    Votes: 8 6.8%
  • Marcos Freitas

    Votes: 8 6.8%
  • Tang Peng

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Tiago Apolonia

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other (Post Below)

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • Total voters
    117
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# FINAL: MA Long - ZHANG Jike [HD @1080p][Full Match|Short From/Awards]
 
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Ma Long won men's world cup championship in 2012 in Liverpool England , is that same with world championship ?

In the World Cup, it started with 20 entrants, 8 of whom were placed in their bracket in the tournament based on seeding. The other 12 had to compete for the last 8 spots in a round robin qualification round which consisted of 4 groups of 3 players. Then the elimination bracket begins with a round of 16 players. China only gets 2 players. Germany only had two players. All the players are good but there are so many players who are not chosen to play at the World Cup.

The World Table Tennis Championships (WTTC) on the other hand has an extensive qualification process. A highlight of early 2015 will be watching the Chinese WTTC trails. They all will want to place first.

The tournament begins with a round robin part that helps determine seeding. The first round of the tournament starts with 128 players. Over 6 times more players than the World Cup. China has had 6, 7 or 8 players in recent WTTC singles events. In 2013, China had 6 players. In 2011 China had 7 and 6 of them got the the round of 8 (quarter finals).

Other countries were also able to send more talent.

Also, the World Cup takes a weekend. The WTTC takes a whole week.

So, needless to say, once you are invited to the World Cup, it is approximately 6x easier to win it.

Hopeful this provides the information to understand how different winning the World Cup is from winning the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS.


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Well, a difference, Wang Hao got Silver in Olympics 3 times, he was in the finals at the at the World Championships 4 times. He came in second 3 times but he won the World Championships too. He only won once, but he won. Ma Long never got to the finals at the World Championships yet. I do think Ma Long is a great player. But, unfortunately he is a great player who has not gotten to the finals in the WTTC yet. He has not broken the barrier. When Ma Long wins his Olympic Gold or WTTC, and he should win one of those, then he can be considered on a higher level than he can right now. Right now he can be considered like Timo Boll or Zoran Primorac as a great player who has not performed so well on the highest stages.

And the difference between the WTTCs and a regular pro tour event is that everybody is at the WTTCs and you have to beat more higher level players to win and everyone wants to win. As of right now, Ma Long is still king of the small tournaments but has not done it on the highest stages. I will be happy when that changes, but that is a reality until he breaks that barrier.

Oh, and Wang Liqin, who won 3 world championships, went a whole year without dropping a game: not a match, not one game in a match. It was the same number of pro tour matches as when Ma Long went undefeated at pro tour events. For Ma Long it was not 560 days, which would have been almost 2 years. It would have been almost impossible for him to not win a WTTC with almost two years undefeated. It was a period of almost 6 months, but 25 pro tour matches. It was a great achievement. But, when Wang Liqin did it (they are tied for number of pro tour matches undefeated) he did not drop one game in one match.

By the way, I believe Wang Liqin went 25 months as number 1, had 3 months out of the number 1 slot and then went another 22 months. However, that was a period of over 4 years where, for only 3 months, he was not number 1, for the rest of that 4 years +, he was ranked number 1 in the world.

One thing that Ma Long does really well, when he plays someone he should beat, he does not mess around, he kills them. He rips through guys who are a level lower than him leaving no doubt.


Since 1965, for the past 49 years (by next WTTC will be 50 years), Wang Liqin is the only person who won WTTC for 3 times, I always think that winning WTTC is more difficult than other tournaments even though China coaches always put more priority on Olympics, this is because winning Olympics' medal can help their country in medal tally standing.
 
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Since 1965, for the past 49 years (by next WTTC will be 50 years), Wang Liqin is the only person who won WTTC for 3 times, I always think that winning WTTC is more difficult than other tournaments even though China coaches always put more priority on Olympics, this is because winning Olympics' medal can help their country in medal tally standing.

One thing on this though, it is rumored that, in 1991 Waldner let his best friend and training partner, Jorgen Persson, win when normally Persson would not beat Waldner in a head to head matchup. Rumor is that Waldner wanted to make sure that Persson got one WTTC title.
 
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One thing on this though, it is rumored that, in 1991 Waldner let his best friend and training partner, Jorgen Persson, win when normally Persson would not beat Waldner in a head to head matchup. Rumor is that Waldner wanted to make sure that Persson got one WTTC title.

I just wrote an extensive reply to another thread about LGL ordering Wang Hao to lose to ZJK in 2012 London Olympic finals (which in short is completely untrue). However, I mentioned in that thread why some people will think this may have some truth is that actually in the past China has ordered its athletes to match fix and one commonly raised example in table tennis is the 2004 Athens Olympic singles semi final between Wang Liqin and Wang Hao (many believe and I feel with fair justification having watched the match quite a few times) that Wang Liqin was ordered to lose to Wang Hao (and actually Wang Hao didn't know this as the match was being played out) as Wang Hao was believed to be very steady against Ryu Seungmin (indeed Wang Hao holds a tremendous record in head to heads against Ryu) except we know what happened in the 2004 Olympics finals, match of a lifetime by Ryu who worthily clenched the gold for Korea. After that China CNT learnt a big lesson and probably hasn't match fixed since.

Anyway, other people may have different opinions, I do feel that Wang Liqin would have likely made the finals in 2004 that year had he displayed his full power as he was at the peak of his career around that period, whether he could beat Ryu in the finals...well it's all history :) It's also of some interest that after 2004 Wang Hao was always a difficult opponent for Wang Liqin as was ZJK later on for Wang Hao. Anyways...
 
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I just wrote an extensive reply to another thread about LGL ordering Wang Hao to lose to ZJK in 2012 London Olympic finals (which in short is completely untrue). However, I mentioned in that thread why some people will think this may have some truth is that actually in the past China has ordered its athletes to match fix and one commonly raised example in table tennis is the 2004 Athens Olympic singles semi final between Wang Liqin and Wang Hao (many believe and I feel with fair justification having watched the match quite a few times) that Wang Liqin was ordered to lose to Wang Hao (and actually Wang Hao didn't know this as the match was being played out) as Wang Hao was believed to be very steady against Ryu Seungmin (indeed Wang Hao holds a tremendous record in head to heads against Ryu) except we know what happened in the 2004 Olympics finals, match of a lifetime by Ryu who worthily clenched the gold for Korea. After that China CNT learnt a big lesson and probably hasn't match fixed since.

Anyway, other people may have different opinions, I do feel that Wang Liqin would have likely made the finals in 2004 that year had he displayed his full power as he was at the peak of his career around that period, whether he could beat Ryu in the finals...well it's all history :) It's also of some interest that after 2004 Wang Hao was always a difficult opponent for Wang Liqin as was ZJK later on for Wang Hao. Anyways...

I have heard the Chinese team used to do that. I don't think they do it any more but I don't know. But that is different than Waldner wanting his best friend to have a WTTC title and so, throwing the match because he wanted to. Also, Persson still had to be good enough to get there. I don't know if this actually happened or if 1991 was really just Persson's year. But a lot of people think Waldner gave that one to his best friend.
 
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One thing I found very funny about the board-kicking incident was the response from the guy who was doing the (live) commentary for the ITTF channel - he didn't utter a single word about it!! That is just incredible. I bet Eurosport and all the other TV channels around the world had something interesting to say. If you know, please reveal.
 
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In the World Cup, it started with 20 entrants, 8 of whom were placed in their bracket in the tournament based on seeding. The other 12 had to compete for the last 8 spots in a round robin qualification round which consisted of 4 groups of 3 players. Then the elimination bracket begins with a round of 16 players. China only gets 2 players. Germany only had two players. All the players are good but there are so many players who are not chosen to play at the World Cup.

The World Table Tennis Championships (WTTC) on the other hand has an extensive qualification process. A highlight of early 2015 will be watching the Chinese WTTC trails. They all will want to place first.

The tournament begins with a round robin part that helps determine seeding. The first round of the tournament starts with 128 players. Over 6 times more players than the World Cup. China has had 6, 7 or 8 players in recent WTTC singles events. In 2013, China had 6 players. In 2011 China had 7 and 6 of them got the the round of 8 (quarter finals).

Other countries were also able to send more talent.

Also, the World Cup takes a weekend. The WTTC takes a whole week.

So, needless to say, once you are invited to the World Cup, it is approximately 6x easier to win it.

Hopeful this provides the information to understand how different winning the World Cup is from winning the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Carl, important is the condition ..
IF YOU ARE INVITED..

Because to get invited, you have to beat so many chinese players (if you are a chinese), to win the asian cup or previous world championships..
Its far from easy!
 
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Carl, important is the condition ..
IF YOU ARE INVITED..

Because to get invited, you have to beat so many chinese players (if you are a chinese), to win the asian cup or previous world championships..
Its far from easy!

And hence I said:

So, needless to say, once you are invited to the World Cup, it is approximately 6x easier to win it.

And the interesting thing is, Ma Long has had a few shots at it. And I know he lost to Samsonov in the semi-finals in 2009 when the Chinese team was thinking it was his.

And remember, you have to earn a spot at the World Championships too.
 
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