WCQ winning four golds at the Asian Games was crazy, I think he's got his pulse on the men's doubles and mixed doubles titles 8 out of 10 times, if he finds a way to beat FZD consistently, we just might be seeing a new champion.
19th Asian Games Hangzhou
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I mean a simple (bio-)mechanical argument: a 14 yo boys and 20 yo young men have different heights, leverages and characteristic stroke timings. So, if they want to continue top-spinning, they have to step away from the table. This does not necessarily translates to Harimoto, but he visibly gained mass and it's hard to maintain agility and rapidity with extra mass.
More power to him, what can I say. This style is an interesting experiment.
It looks to me (from my couch) that CNT is pretty liberal with regards to players' styles.
It's a little over the top even for me
I can filter out Michael's argument, but it's not a serious discussion.
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On player styles I beg to differ, they are actually pretty uniform, but that is true for modern attackers in general. Obviously players have different strengths and weaknesses but the CNT largely all play the same style. Harimoto is very distinct as a player in trying to take the ball extremely early, even if it forces more blocking than some would consider ideal. His game is close to the women's than the men's but he is of course physically stronger.
Harimoto gained the mass to support his forehand movement and stroke power. Of course he got taller too but that is what it is. The thing is that every player develops different based on their special strengths and relationship with the coach. I would be lying if I said that I never have had similar thoughts to TB on Harimoto but just about everyone has. A common issue is that they fail to place his issues in the context of his development and his results. I go back to the Coco Gauff example - she had a clear technical flaw in her forehand that made it break down under pressure. But she was a French Open finalist. But she is by a good distance the best athlete on the women's tour, so once they made her forehand consistent, all she had to do was run down everything. It will take Harimoto having a really bad day to shut down everything because he is still clearly improving with his current approach. Harimoto is clearly narrowing the gap between forehand and backhand and using doubles to work on his mid distance. He is also clearly working extremely hard, no matter the results.
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Harimoto doesn't have a weak FH lol...
At the world top 10 level everything is relative. All of them have strong FHs and will loopkill loose balls consistently past their opponent if given the opportunity and anticipated well.
When he won against FZD and WCQ he for sure didn't have a weak FH.
Try playing with an injury and you'll see what it does to all your strokes.
I even seen Ma Long completely missing all his FH loops sometimes too - sometimes you're just in bad form and that's it.
At the world top 10 level everything is relative. All of them have strong FHs and will loopkill loose balls consistently past their opponent if given the opportunity and anticipated well.
When he won against FZD and WCQ he for sure didn't have a weak FH.
Try playing with an injury and you'll see what it does to all your strokes.
I even seen Ma Long completely missing all his FH loops sometimes too - sometimes you're just in bad form and that's it.
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C'mon, ML, FZD, XX, WCQ, LGY play the same style? Yes, they play all-out offensive TT, but that's pretty much all they have in common. I would probably agree that second tier guys are more generic, but these top athletes are easily distinguishable.
Yes, obviously, but I don't know what that means for his development.
I started to watch yesterday and the very first match for me incidentally was XD with the Koreans: it's a disaster.
Loop killing loose balls is out of discussion. We are talking about attack into his FH basically. There's no doubt that Harimoto has decent attacking FH, but the counterattack near the table is a problem.
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Yes, they all play largely the same style. And one can see clearly that Harimoto is transitioning t ok that style. If it is a disaster, so be it, like I said, he is trying to build out skills at a world class level without stopping tournament play. Inevitably it will start as a disaster but over time it will get better and better.
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Majin Buu has proven me wrong at every stage. I still think he is going to lose this but his run has been impressive.
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The issue with Harimoto's FH is not stroke or footwork as it was back in 2018. Those have been alleviated in 2022. The issue is that Harimoto insists on staying close to the table when getting bombarded. He reverts to 貼/paste (blocking with a forward motion) on either FH and BH not because he can't counter with 帶/guide or 撕/rip, it's because the 點/point is not right (the specific point in the trajectory of the ball after bounce, think of it as timing) and so he often gets 頂/jammed. Aside from reaction time, that is the major reason players have to back off from the table when counterlooping.
At the WTT SCT Lanzhou, it can be seen he is more willing to take a few steps back.
At the WTT SCT Lanzhou, it can be seen he is more willing to take a few steps back.
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If TB/MZ was on this forum few years ago, when ZJK was around and taking 1st spot, he would say Ma Long has no talent too and Ma Long still can't beat any one inside 3 shots....he really needs to change rubbers.
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It is all based on this idea that talent means your results must always be going upwards or you are a failure in realizing it. As a famous consultant once wrote, "What got you here won't get you there!"
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true talent is winning points with 1 shot only, no matter if serve or service return. The point must be scored
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@NextLevel
I rate Deng Yaping a more successful player over Ma Long by far, especially with Deng's short time span to achieve everything.
Thinking about it now, not even Deng can finish all her points inside 3 shots...
I rate Deng Yaping a more successful player over Ma Long by far, especially with Deng's short time span to achieve everything.
Thinking about it now, not even Deng can finish all her points inside 3 shots...
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