Wow. The thread hikjack is in full effect. It seems like all that fuss about 3 dimensional/2 dimensional--yes, about SEMANTICS--started with someone being insistent about wanting to know what I meant.
Well, here is what I meant when I made the statement. From training with him for 2 hours and going through a variety of drills including game simulation drills, I found him to be solid in his technique. All his strokes are good: serves, pushes, chops, loops, drives, counter-hits. There isn't a stand out weakness. He also can link all of those things so that he is not one of those guys who look good while training and then play a match and are no good at connecting shots, thinking on their feet or playing matches. At Shuki's level he is a decently complete player.
But less than 3 dimensional as a player could mean any number of things. I think NDH did a good job at explaining this. But why not take a shot at it myself.
I remember, in the 1990's when I really sucked and didn't really ply, there was a point, for 3 months, between jobs, when I found a TT club and went and played. Most of what I did was hit with the robot because almost everyone there was too good for me to play.
This one time, this guy wanted to play me a match. He had an outfit on that made him look like a pro. He told me he was 1500. At the time I didn't even know what that meant. Anyway, we played and I think we played a best of 5 match. Back then games went to 21 so that was a long match. But we were there to play. He did all these things that, at the time I thought were funny like how he tried to serve from the deep BH side or how he tried to take big shots with his FH from the BH side. These things left him open. He'd move to the BH side and I'd put the ball on the FH side. He'd run over, I'd put it back on the BH side. The match was close. It went to the last game. And I did win. But I never should have been able to play remotely close to his level. From a technical standpoint he was better than me in every way. But he had gaping holes in his understanding of how to apply those techniques in a game situation. Perhaps people who he played who were in the 1500 range did not think of doing the things I did which to me seemed totally simple and obvious. He was 1 dimensional because he could not execute the game plan he was trying to implement. So that is one version of not being 3 dimensional. When I did not fall into his silly traps, he did not know how to adapt to something different.
There was this one time a few years ago I played this guy who is a friend now. He also should be way better than me. His serves are awesome. His FH is beautiful. His game is almost complete. If his BH was as good as his serve and FH, he would be 2100 level minimum. But, his BH is sooooo bad that I can still get matches from him. The matchup of my BH to his BH, I will not lose if I can keep him pinned to his BH. And if he tries to turn for FH when I try to pin him there he gives me an open down the line.
That is a different version of not 3 dimensional. One wing being week.
Some players can hide a missing dimension well enough. But if you find and expose one of those things they are week at, you can start picking apart their game.
Someone whose game is complete and 3 dimensional, they might get their azz kicked by a higher level player. But that is what happens when you play someone better than you. A complete player will be able to adapt to whatever someone on their level throws at them whether they are winning or losing in a match.
Table tennis is a sport of levels. When you do everything solidly at your actual level, I would say you are a complete or 3 dimensional player. But a player 2 levels higher than you, will almost always beat you.
If all you do well is attack, you may be a one dimensional player. If all you are able to do is chop, even if you are a very good player, you might be one dimensional.
All aspects of Shuki's game are developing side by side. That is what I meant when I used the term. He is well coached and pretty darn good.
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