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Hmmm there are a lot of possible holes in your argument.... The Chinese training system has only really reached a level of peak after Waldner's true prime years. During much of his career, the top training system was probably sweden. the Chinese system may have required a lot of training and hard work, but it really has developed the streamlined efficiency that it has today.
Boll's game matches up horribly against Waldner for one thing. Waldner's style incorporates a lot of the same block shots that Oh Seung Enh has, and Boll also does horribly against him. Even if we don't consider this, having a lot of experience in a sport can often outweigh a lot of other factors. I mean if we really look at it, at the current moment, Wang Liqin despite not being able to beat many of the younger Chinese, he still beats all the nonChinese players, and when he is in peak form, still beats Ma Lin, and I think has a good chance of beating Xu Xin and ZJK.
the argument that Waldner faced europeans that were far better in their day compared with those today, along with the argument that he stood toe to toe with the Chinese is really hard to make a convincing argument with. I don't think the past european players were necessarily any better, I just think that comparatively they did better against their Chinese counterparts. For the reasons stated above, even though the Chinese were a big player even several decades ago, I really don't think their system reached even close to its maturity that it reach by the time Wang Liqin and Ma Lin began to become the main representatives of China, and even that generation's system can't compare with what the system that created Ma Long and ZJK are like today. Right now we have 6 Chinese in the top 10, 3 in the top 3, and then aside from Boll, the next three are also Chinese, thats a level of domination that China has never reached in the past.
sorry they won every team event from 77to 89,except 79 when the 3 amazing hungarians played out of there skin.. guo was in four finals in a row and only lost 2 because he was told to, jiang, chen teng yi were always in the top 4-5 in the world include chenxinhua, I was at thornaby in the 80s watching the chinese reserve team absolutely stuff anyone...sweden had the same team for 10 years before they finally overcame the chinese....china were virtually untouchable for this era ,,, the chinese had to change the style to acomodate the glue game, as in 89 the short pips were blown away, the hardest games for the swedes were the chinese shakehand looper, t took them 6 years to catch up and reverse this...with kong and the reverse backhand of liu..
.Also gatien was world champ , roskopf won euro , world doubles, primorac 3 times euro r/up,person world champ. lindh world cup, applegren 3 times euro, world cup, world team world doubles, so I think the euro s players were definately stroger then more in depth..