Maybe he is 2300 or even more, from exact video it’s just didn’t looked like that to me.
I think it's really obvious he's a 2300 + player.....
Different coloured shoes?
Knee band?
Cybershape blade?
This man is a baller right here! (just a little joke for any non native English speaker who doesn't get my humour!)
On a serious note, this is one of the many quirks of Table Tennis.
Watching people of a different level play a match, and trying to gauge what their level is.
From my POV, I think both players look worse than they actually are (but I'm saying that with a prior knowledge of one of the players, so it's obviously a little unfair and unrealistic for someone else to know that).
Why does NL look worse than normal?
He knows he's the underdog (despite his rating), so he's going for big shots early, as the longer the rally goes on, the less chance he has.
What this does, is force a lot of errors, and ultimately NL played below his standard here.
Playing against pips - More importantly, playing against someone who is GOOG with pips (and can still attack very well), is also a recipe for a poor game.
The shots that NL is missing look really tame.
Easy balls put in the net, little shots flying way off the table - It doesn't look high quality from either of them, and the pips absolutely play a part here.
Why does the opponent look worse than normal?
Well, firstly, you can only play to the level of your opponent.
If Timo Boll played me, in front of a crowd who knew nothing about Table Tennis, they would come away thinking that Timo was the better player, but he wasn't THAT good.
In this instance - NL is either missing the shots (because of his game plan of attacking first), or the opponent is putting away comfortable balls.
NL isn't giving him the balls to allow him to look really good - Not that I think players with his play style ever truly look good.
You can see he's skilled with the pips - The way he takes the ball very early, and does more than just put the bat in front of the ball like some pips players - This guy knows how to use pips to his advantage.
Just to round it off, he's also a very good reverse rubber attacker, which completely rules out the option of simply "keeping the ball in play" and waiting for your moment to attack.
Against defensive minded pips players, you have all the time in the world.
But against this guy, the minute you play it safe, you are on the back foot of some very good attacking strokes.
So yeah, I completely agree that he does not look like a 2300+ player in this video, and if this was all we had to judge him on, I'd find it hard to believe he was a VERY good player.
But that's just the fun of different styles with TT - It's very hard to judge the rating off a small snap shot of video.
