Felix Lebrun should play short pips on FH

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Interesting to draw correlation there....
Do you mean sports in general or TT specifically?
I don't know your age at all so forgive me here but was there was a time in your life when Pro sports were played to entertain rather than to win?
I can't say I've ever seen this, at least not that I can remember...
Part of the intrigue for me is the seriousness in the mental aspect because of the stakes, and that intrigue and knowing how much it means to both sides is a lot of the entertainment.
People dedicate their entire lives to sports in order to be successful. Anyone who plays just to entertain may not make it to where they can be seen unless they are just supremely talented....
It is interesting to think though, maybe there were more mavericks and entertainers before money became (seemingly) the be all and end all...

sport is only possible with money
else, it is just hobby / amateurs

you need money to make sport entertaining

else, without money, sports, will just become e-sport.
I play against you in the comfort of my home and you in yours, and we save money by not traveling, or even needing by rackets/clothes.
maybe one day, that would be what sports will become
but for right now, money is required to play sport and with table tennis - money is way not enough.

 

[suds79]

I saw this post the other day and it's an old one so I didn't feel like bumping it but now that it has been pushed back to the top, I'd like to say to the OP that this notion is a little silly and I'm assuming the point I'm about to make others have stated.

Yes Felix's FH is the weakest part of his game. Now I think it's because he uses the curled finger approach when we all know the more extended fingers on the back helps lend to power but lets not focus on that. This isn't about his grip. it's about the ball. The ball is everything here why this doesn't work.

I've heard the argument "Liu Guoliang proved it could work." from the OP and that strikes me as so bizarre because table tennis is a completely different sport from back when Liu played. If Liu played today in his prime he couldn't play with today's ball. He would have to play inverted both sides. He was a 38mm guy. That was perfect for SP & smashing. Can we all not see the speed difference in a smash of his back then to now? You simply cannot get the same point of speed on today's bigger ball.

If Mattias Falck is the benchmark for what Felix could go to, that's really sad as Felix is better right now than Mattias ever was. Mattias is the only SP player on FH on the men's side I can think of in recent history. The only one out of countless others who have come & gone in the top say 50 ranking over the last several years. There has to be a reason for that don't we think? Truth be told the best part of Mattias's game was his inverted BH anyways. I always thought his FH consistency & overall quality was just meh relative to other pros his range.

So the notion that Felix should go to SP is silly. What he needs to do is think about his grip and hit the weight room. It could be maybe he just doesn't have the natural FH gifts other players had like a Xu Xin for example. That's okay. He makes up with it with his RPB which is right there with Wang Hao's for the best ever. Just have to play to your strengths.

For the record as a penholder myself, I really like watching the penholder SP/Inverted style. You see it a little more commonly in the women's game since they can't physically generate the same amount of spin as men and the women's game is a very close to the table style. It's fun to watch but even there it's rare as most women play inverted both sides. So I say this not because I don't like the style. I do. It's just that for Felix at this point would basically ruin his career and never get back to the level he is right now if he were to do such a drastic thing.

 

[NetProphet]

sport is only possible with money
else, it is just hobby / amateurs

Well not strictly true.
Many sports have survived at high level while remaining amateur in nature and many have only turned professional in recent years.
Most sports were born without money, thrived without money and were only coopted by money and corporations at a later stage.
But maybe you're referring to highest level sports, where such excellence is only possible by committing 1000s of hours to a craft which people generally cannot do without funding, sponsorship and)or salary.

you need money to make sport entertaining

I see this the other way around, sports only get money because they are entertaining.
That entertainment creates a fan base that can be exploited for profit.

else, without money, sports, will just become e-sport.
I play against you in the comfort of my home and you in yours, and we save money by not traveling, or even needing by rackets/clothes.
maybe one day, that would be what sports will become
but for right now, money is required to play sport and with table tennis - money is way not enough.

Definitely the way it's going/gone for the younger gen!
Altho I wouldn't play you on a TV, I'd just go to my club or any club. This future way of things will never be appealing to me personally, think I'm too old for that to catch now!

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Well not strictly true.
Many sports have survived at high level while remaining amateur in nature and many have only turned professional in recent years.
Most sports were born without money, thrived without money and were only coopted by money and corporations at a later stage.
But maybe you're referring to highest level sports, where such excellence is only possible by committing 1000s of hours to a craft which people generally cannot do without funding, sponsorship and)or salary.

so you agree, if there is no money it is only hobby/amateur
pro level, you need to burn money like crazy. Without money, you cannot become pro.
even gofundme/crowd funding is money related.

I see this the other way around, sports only get money because they are entertaining.
That entertainment creates a fan base that can be exploited for profit.

without money, who will be the ones working to make the sport entertaining?
you need money to pay the salaries for all those behind the scene staff.
it isn't just 2 players get together on the table and the "match" becomes entertaining.

There is a lot of money involved in making a tournament happen.
there is even way more money to make the tournament entertaining and to attract viewship.

Definitely the way it's going/gone for the younger gen!
Altho I wouldn't play you on a TV, I'd just go to my club or any club. This future way of things will never be appealing to me personally, think I'm too old for that to catch now!

what i am saying, by no longer spending money, sport will just be in your house.

really pro sport, people travel and compete.
and money is very important resource in this journey.

 

[NetProphet]

so you agree, if there is no money it is only hobby/amateur

No.
'Professional' sport is only possible with money. In my interpretation of professional here I'm going with the info from recent thread about definition of professional.
'Sports' always existed first without money, that's my point.
But you said 'sports', not 'professional sports' so that's the differentiation here.
Rugby was still a high level sport before it turned professional, as an example.

pro level, you need to burn money like crazy. Without money, you cannot become pro.
even gofundme/crowd funding is money related.


without money, who will be the ones working to make the sport entertaining?
you need money to pay the salaries for all those behind the scene staff.
it isn't just 2 players get together on the table and the "match" becomes entertaining.

There is a lot of money involved in making a tournament happen.

Sure, money goes in to make tournaments happen, at amateur and local level too

there is even way more money to make the tournament entertaining and to attract viewship.

Money isn't needed to make it entertaining.
To get it on TV yes, but it's still entertaining as it happens with 15 spectators or 15m spectators.

But your argument seems to be that it's boring without money and I don't agree.
It can't be pursued professionally without money and obviously competitive events need some funding but I live in Ireland where our biggest sports (bigger than even rugby & soccer) are amateur sports and local in nature and all mad possible from funding and passionate fans.
Our national stadium to accommodate it seats 90,000+ ppl and is on par with any football stadium anywhere, it's still amateur.

So while blankets statements don't cover everything I'm not really here to argue with you.
There is spending money and there is SPENDING MONEY!

Taking it back to the original post from Lazer where he said it's getting boring because of too much money. That's what I found an interesting comment and I was loosely exploring what he might have meant by that.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Taking it back to the original post from Lazer where he said it's getting boring because of too much money. That's what I found an interesting comment and I was loosely exploring what he might have meant by that.

surely can't be table tennis
maybe some pro sport where the zeros can be reduce by 1, 2 or 3 zeroes and still more than enough.

in table tennis (which this forum is about), there is not enough money.
even umpires are paid peanuts
and you expect pro umpire... umpires are pro on paper, buy amateur by definition of earnings.

 

[NetProphet]

surely can't be table tennis
maybe some pro sport where the zeros can be reduce by 1, 2 or 3 zeroes and still more than enough.

in table tennis (which this forum is about), there is not enough money.
even umpires are paid peanuts
and you expect pro umpire... umpires are pro on paper, buy amateur by definition of earnings.

Well now your on my page.
This is basically what I was thinking when I picked this up....