China Smash 2024, Beijing, 9/26-10/6

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Eventually most players fall into bad habits when the going gets tough.

correct
getting rid of bad habits, especially mental/mindset related is near impossible to overcome.
that what makes a great player different to the best player.
its that one little hurdle to overcome during the most important stage.
99% of the players quality will drop, and that best player will still maintain the quality.

Harimoto is a top 5, top 10 easily.
Top 1 or 2, very difficult, as he still shows that he struggles to make better judgements at crucial stages.
never the less, one of the best of the rest (outside of cnt

 

[Shine]

LSD has been flamed by netizens, particularly those from anti-WCQ camp, for his 'hidden' serves for quite some time now. Even Boll was peeved when they played during SG Smash which is rather telling since Boll is renowned for being fair. Point is, he's a recurring offender.

I didn't watch Felix vs XP but if I were to make a guess, the latter probably won many points using shovel serves too. It's a new gen tradition seemingly endorsed by the coaches.

Boll thinks because his toss is up to 16 cm, his serve is fair
Does he see what his head does to the ball's view?

 

[Shine]

You neglected to address the point where LSD and WCQ are pulling out the most blatantly illegal stuff at crucial moments. Find me the times when Lind does this and you can equate the two.

Yes, they do win more than Lind does. I'm not sure how this relates to the topic. Are you saying that Timo Boll complained about LSD and nobody else is that it wasn't blatant cheating but that he got upset that LSD waas too skilled? Connect the dots for me.

It seems like you're really dug into defending Lind and LSD serves as the same. Yes, I understand the free arm can hide the ball. That was never in question. But if you want to actually engage in fruitful conversation, it would be helpful if you could address the points I keep bringing up instead of going on tangents.

So Timo Boll is the arbiter of legality?,
Do you even watch Lind's matches as much to see what his opponents are saying?
People will complain about whatever when they desperately need to win.

 

[Shine]

As dissected before, Hirano turned her focus to the selection trials and beating top 3 CNT players starting 2023. And as blogger Kappa has pointed out recently after a review of playing schedules for Hayata, Ito and Hirano in 2022 and 2023, the higher your WR the easier time you have in the WTT event structure with the PDR, NER and extremely low seeding positions and how it has become a "draw game", AKA luck.

To see whether they are true to ranking, you have to count how many times each of them has reached her seeding/starting position. You'll be surprised. Reproducing a previous post below.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/wtt-singapore-smash-2024-3-7-3-17.33147/post-447071

Please. Go look up their world ranking at the start and end of the race. This is wasting my time. If anything, it's Ito who has not been keeping up.

The selection race officially started after Zennihon Takkyu 2022, 1/24-30 and ended after Zennihon Takkyu 2024, 1/22-28
Initial points from 2020 were reduced to 20% from 1/2022 onward, and 0% from 5/2022 onward
ITTF TTWR 2022/2/1, 2022/5/3, 2024/1/30
Ito 3 (4 events), 6 (5), 10 (10)
Hayata 6 (6 events), 5 (7), 5 (17)
Hirano 15 (4 events), 44 (5), 18 (11)
Kihara 52 (3 events), 15 (6), 25 (13)
Nagasaki 67 (2 events), 96 (5), 26 (12)
Harimoto unranked (624 as of 2022/3/15), 71 (4), 16 (14)

We understand that there's luck and other externalities to do with it.
But Hirano has to pull herself up by her bootstraps, no one is going to do that for her.
Hayata got into the top 10 by beating everybody not wearing a Chinese shirt, and doing her research to attend events in obscure continents that Chinese players avoid. She didn't give excuses.
Hirano has got to do that too.

 

[Shine]

XP BH is a bit Fang Bo like which imo handicaps him a bit way too much especially against modern BH players like LSD. He intentionally aims it a lot and there is a general lack of smoothness in the fingers/supination/wrist movement as he tries to 'fix' them too much instead of just letting it rip to produce huge spin. I would be really surprised if he wins against LSD.

This I agree with
His bh still looks tense and rigid in it's mechanics, plus his short forehand receive is a work in progress.

I actually think Truls is a better player and showed enough variety and tricks to win that match. Xiang's tenacity in hanging on in the rallies eventually helped, but he was lucky.

 

[zeio]

We understand that there's luck and other externalities to do with it.
But Hirano has to pull herself up by her bootstraps, no one is going to do that for her.
Hayata got into the top 10 by beating everybody not wearing a Chinese shirt, and doing her research to attend events in obscure continents that Chinese players avoid. She didn't give excuses.
Hirano has got to do that too.

Oh, Hayata sure did. She complained back in 2018/2019 about having to fly across the world to play Challenge events and T.League matches that her head was spinning. I will see if I can find that article. She also complained how Ito was mysteriously strong only when playing her after losing to her consistently.

If anything, Hirano is the one that has rarely complained since 2018/2019. The last time she complained was in the second half of 2017, how the CNT was coming for her after winning ATTC 2017. Watanabe actually praised her for only taking 1 day off despite the hectic schedule during the preparation leading up to Paris 2024.

 

[FIXPOINT]

China Smash 2024 WS SF

 

[Robin0910]

Xiang Peng’s backhand developed tremendously. His flicks are not there yet but in every other aspect it’s phenomenal. He could play more with the placement tho

 

[dingyibvs]

Damn, what friggin match between XP and LSD thus far.

 

[Robin0910]

It seems like LSD starter hiding some of his serves, especially the hook serves which go from his bh corner to the opponents fh corner.

 

[dingyibvs]

XP has been doing a great job at varying his BH shots, mixing a less spinny control shot with a power loop. When LSD backs off to mid distance his control shot gives LSD no power to borrow and often forces errors. However, he's much more predictable on the FH side, only a power loop, and LSD has been the first to adjust by playing with more spin and less with speed. We'll see if XP can adjust as well.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

It seems like LSD starter hiding some of his serves, especially the hook serves which go from his bh corner to the opponents fh corner.

seems like the go to solution for these new generation captains.
you hardly see the previous captains rely on this to win

I mean, there is a border line, but WCQ, LSD for example, have crossed that line, and I think is a reason why there are anti wcq crowds, as they all don't like his hidden serve too.

 

[dingyibvs]

Somewhat strangely, it seems like what XP needs to do to beat LSD is to improve his FH. Not in terms of power, but in spin and placement. LSD has better FH placement thus far, but after scoring a couple points with his power shots he's gone back to going full speed all the time, which has resulted in more errors as XP manages to return them with just enough quality to keep himself in the point until LSD makes a mistake.

 

[AutomaticBackhand]

 

[dingyibvs]

What a great match that was! XP's last few lost points where he hit a FH opening loop to LSD's wide FH only to be countered back for winners shows where he needs to improve. Yes, with a ball that short a shot to the wide FH allows for the most powerful shot, but if it were Ma Long he would've taken a bit off the ball in order to hit right at the opponent's body instead. By always going for the most powerful FH shot he's too predictable on his FH side, and that's his downfall this match.

 

[SFF_lib]

What a great match that was! XP's last few lost points where he hit a FH opening loop to LSD's wide FH only to be countered back for winners shows where he needs to improve. Yes, with a ball that short a shot to the wide FH allows for the most powerful shot, but if it were Ma Long he would've taken a bit off the ball in order to hit right at the opponent's body instead. By always going for the most powerful FH shot he's too predictable on his FH side, and that's his downfall this match.

XP's placement never changed and is too predictable. If he killed LSD's mid point he could've won the 6th game.

 

[SFF_lib]

My predictaion of final - LSD win ML 4-2

 

[Robin0910]

Ma Long’s over the table forehand loop is still amazing. Hardly see anyone else do it

 

[AutomaticBackhand]

Lin Shidongs playstyle and success seems so suprising to me.
How is he the first one that I see that plays from so far away from the table with such high quality, agility and stability - while not making any "big" moves like Xu Xin or Fan Zhendong.
Usually, you are at a major disadvantage having to cover so much distance and bring up more power to resaonably stay in the rallies.

Fan Zhendong usually doesn't go that far back, and when he does he is deep squatting using bigger movements.
Lin Shidong seems so casual - but up until recently, he didn't have big international breakthroughs - for various reasons.

He is good at what I call "Play safe - until safe to attack!" in rallies, where he soft blocks the balls back to his opponent until he can go for more powerful shots himself - and it works.
He is young and agile enough to cover all the areas and trained well enough with good technique to not fall victim to "better" shots.

Mentally he acts and seems like a champion - unlike Wang Chuqin.
No tantrums or emotional "vulnerabilities".


Anyways, my prediction:

ML 4-2 LJK

ML 4-2 LSD

 

[dingyibvs]

XP's placement never changed and is too predictable. If he killed LSD's mid point he could've won the 6th game.

And the other close games too. Think about all the times he went for power loops over the table when he could've done a slower, spinny loop with better placement. When the ball is short, it won't take long to reach the opponent even if you don't give it a lot of speed, placement is more useful here. Loop it to the body, to the super wide FH, or even one without much speed or spin but faded to the BH, just don't try to power it to the FH corner every single time.

Look at ML thus far, he's hit one, maybe two to the FH corner, all others to the FH went off the side or to the body.