I don't know what is more pitiful...

[fais]

The facilities/TT hall at Rio or ZJK's performance. Either way, both the weather at Rio and Hao Shuai were making it rain
All joking aside, I still can't shake this feeling that ZJK has fallen too far behind, and that no amount of last minute training will get him caught up. However, if anyone can do it, he can.

 

[Dan]

Watching this video makes me realise how strong of a player Hao Shuai was!

 

[NextLevel]

Hao Shuai played in Baltimore at the NA Teams in 2014. The best part of watching him play was seeing so many 2500-2700 players pop up or net his serves repeatedly. When he worked with his training partners, who were lower rated university students, he had to tell them what his spins were while serving in practice.

 

[Dan]

Hao Shuai played in Baltimore at the NA Teams in 2014. The best part of watching him play was seeing so many 2500-2700 players pop up or net his serves repeatedly. When he worked with his training partners, who were lower rated university students, he had to tell them what his spins were while serving in practice.

Wow that's really cool! His serves do look so tricky, and being left handed I can imagine the university students had a great time with Hao! Are there any videos clips of Hao's days in Baltimore?

 

[NextLevel]

Wow that's really cool! His serves do look so tricky, and being left handed I can imagine the university students had a great time with Hao! Are there any videos clips of Hao's days in Baltimore?

Quite a few in this channel. Must have been 2013 tho...

 

[TTFrenzy]

The facilities/TT hall at Rio or ZJK's performance. Either way, both the weather at Rio and Hao Shuai were making it rain
All joking aside, I still can't shake this feeling that ZJK has fallen too far behind, and that no amount of last minute training will get him caught up. However, if anyone can do it, he can.

Last minue training??? They are preparing for rio since wtttc He's been training for 20+ years, his only problem is his physical condition, which it seems is not like in the past for sure. Lets not forget who hao shuai is, if LGL didnt dislike him and thought highly of him he would be much better imho. But then again he is probably the only (now former) top CNT who has negative record against boll

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I think the reason the CNT coaches pulled their trust from Hao Shui is that his game is great vs CNT players. But when facing European players, there were too many examples of him losing matches to European players where CNT coaches were not happy about. There were too many tournaments where he knocked out a CNT member who had a better record in International play, only to lose in a later round to a European player who the CNT coaches were pretty sure would not have beaten the player Hao Shui beat from the CNT.

It happened enough times that the CNT coaches started seeing it as a pattern. Even in the run up to the China Trials for the 2015 WTTC Hao Sui was actually ranked # 5 in play solely within China. That means, in all China play, the only people who performed better than Hao Shuia were the top 4. But in international play, there is no way he is that good.

He uses the power of the the top Chinese players against them. But when a player plays softer with more fishing, Hao can't put them away.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[izra]

yup, his record against other cnt members was ridiculously good but his performance against europeans disappointing. similar to chen qi who had a cannon in his hand with witch he could blast through anyone on a good day but would likely choke against boll or samsonov.

 

[fais]

Last minue training??? They are preparing for rio since wtttc He's been training for 20+ years, his only problem is his physical condition, which it seems is not like in the past for sure. Lets not forget who hao shuai is, if LGL didnt dislike him and thought highly of him he would be much better imho. But then again he is probably the only (now former) top CNT who has negative record against boll

I think ZJK is a hell of an athlete with an incredible TT game. I however, do not think he has invested as much into TT since the last olympics as the likes of XX and ML, which is why I'm bitter. It appears to me that he has been pretty much coasting since the last olympics, and hasn't taken his game to the next level. Not so with ML, XX and FZD, whose games continue to evolve. I wish that ZJK had the work ethic of these guys, because I would have loved to see his contributions to this sport. Watching him play now is no different than watching him play 4 years ago, and I don't feel he should be rewarded for not working as hard as his peers.

 

[Mart11]

I think ZJK is a hell of an athlete with an incredible TT game. I however, do not think he has invested as much into TT since the last olympics as the likes of XX and ML, which is why I'm bitter. It appears to me that he has been pretty much coasting since the last olympics, and hasn't taken his game to the next level. Not so with ML, XX and FZD, whose games continue to evolve. I wish that ZJK had the work ethic of these guys, because I would have loved to see his contributions to this sport. Watching him play now is no different than watching him play 4 years ago, and I don't feel he should be rewarded for not working as hard as his peers.

Well said! Although I like ZJK

 

[ttmonster]

Yes, this is exactly what it is , it has nothing to do with the video of LGL slapping Hao Shuai ... contrary to what most conspiracy theorists like to believe....

Hao Shuai has great technique and touch but he needs to feed off power of the opponent ... we all know what happened to him when Maze lobbed him down ... it also shows some sort of big match weakness ...

I don't think CNT coaches select players based on their personal likes / dislikes , if that was the case the system would have fallen apart by now. The continued success of the team indicates that these management decisions are made objectively and there are enough checks and balances in place to prevent favoritism or nepotism. I don't see ZJK getting chances to come back to the team twice after disciplinary issues if this was not the case. Its very easy to decide to not have such "difficult to manage" players in the team especially in a team which has a ready supply of potential replacements ...

We just see what the players do when they are playing tournaments , we don't know what they are working on in practice , how they are performing in internal matches etc.

I think the reason the CNT coaches pulled their trust from Hao Shui is that his game is great vs CNT players. But when facing European players, there were too many examples of him losing matches to European players where CNT coaches were not happy about. There were too many tournaments where he knocked out a CNT member who had a better record in International play, only to lose in a later round to a European player who the CNT coaches were pretty sure would not have beaten the player Hao Shui beat from the CNT.

It happened enough times that the CNT coaches started seeing it as a pattern. Even in the run up to the China Trials for the 2015 WTTC Hao Sui was actually ranked # 5 in play solely within China. That means, in all China play, the only people who performed better than Hao Shuia were the top 4. But in international play, there is no way he is that good.

He uses the power of the the top Chinese players against them. But when a player plays softer with more fishing, Hao can't put them away.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[ajtatosmano2]

Quite a few in this channel. Must have been 2013 tho...

Chen Bo Wen scored 4 points in the whole 3 set game.

 

[TTFrenzy]

I think ZJK is a hell of an athlete with an incredible TT game. I however, do not think he has invested as much into TT since the last olympics as the likes of XX and ML, which is why I'm bitter. It appears to me that he has been pretty much coasting since the last olympics, and hasn't taken his game to the next level. Not so with ML, XX and FZD, whose games continue to evolve. I wish that ZJK had the work ethic of these guys, because I would have loved to see his contributions to this sport. Watching him play now is no different than watching him play 4 years ago, and I don't feel he should be rewarded for not working as hard as his peers.

I know some ML fans will hate me for this but ZJK is troubling with injuries since OG 2012. For the lack of development I "Blame" the chinese philosophy of extremely hard training, it would be better to let the man rest and fully recover than drag him around in every tournament. Yan an had the same problems although his injury was much worse. zjk after wttc 2015 he had to lay for 2-3 weeks if i remember correctly in a bed, that is some tough s*** to bare

As for the player selection yes most of the time the best are chosen but zhou yu yan an fang bo were given little to no chances. Their criteria are cruel for sure but I disagree with that philosophy, ZJK himself stated in subtitled documentary ( I thinks its the one about cai zhenhua and liu guoliang) that LGL told him "if you dont make it to the men's top team by 2010 we will stop training you"

Of course it is easy for us to judge the coaches being outside of the situation, but we saw many europeans making it to to the top without having to carry such a heavy load of pressure, which is even bigger for a chinese athlete since his achivements are directly connected with his income after an athletic carreer. I think that in china there are no pensions so your family is completely depended on you.

Anyway my overall impression is that the CNT could have done a lot better in the cases of ma long or wang hao for example and being a huge ma lin and zhang jike fan I can see that they are cases of favoritism. Can't know for sure but its my impression through the years and the coache's selection

 

[fais]

I know some ML fans will hate me for this but ZJK is troubling with injuries since OG 2012. For the lack of development I "Blame" the chinese philosophy of extremely hard training, it would be better to let the man rest and fully recover than drag him around in every tournament. Yan an had the same problems although his injury was much worse. zjk after wttc 2015 he had to lay for 2-3 weeks if i remember correctly in a bed, that is some tough s*** to bare

As for the player selection yes most of the time the best are chosen but zhou yu yan an fang bo were given little to no chances. Their criteria are cruel for sure but I disagree with that philosophy, ZJK himself stated in subtitled documentary ( I thinks its the one about cai zhenhua and liu guoliang) that LGL told him "if you dont make it to the men's top team by 2010 we will stop training you"

Of course it is easy for us to judge the coaches being outside of the situation, but we saw many europeans making it to to the top without having to carry such a heavy load of pressure, which is even bigger for a chinese athlete since his achivements are directly connected with his income after an athletic carreer. I think that in china there are no pensions so your family is completely depended on you.

Anyway my overall impression is that the CNT could have done a lot better in the cases of ma long or wang hao for example and being a huge ma lin and zhang jike fan I can see that they are cases of favoritism. Can't know for sure but its my impression through the years and the coache's selection

Thank you for bringing this up. I was unaware of his injury, nor did I know it was so bad that he was bed ridden. I feel I need to reevaluate my stance and hold off judgement.

 

[Suga D]

I think ttmonster has got a point, too.

All these top players strictly follow what we call over here a "Trainingsplan". Some have short term goals, others have long term goals.
Just like Dima is also following his plan. No one really believed he could work his way up the ranking so high. And look how he did.
The goal of these plans is to get the players to be ready on point to be at the peak of their level. Everything else is not in the focus and hence not so important. (Hope this makes sense)

I think CNT wasn't very satisfied with Wang Hao losing against Ryu Seung Min in 2004. So they "built" up ZJK to not let that happen again in 2008. And as we all know they were pretty successful.

In 2012 ZJK also wasn't No#1 in the ranking but still he was chosen for the Olympics. And again he didn't disappoint the coaches.

But he's not a robot and I think his losses in CTTSL and elsewhere only make him human.

I think LGL knows very well what he's doing and I would be very surprised to not see ZJK's best performance ever...

Let's wait and we soon shall see.

[Emoji3]

 

[fais]

I think ttmonster has got a point, too.

All these top players strictly follow what we call over here a "Trainingsplan". Some have short term goals, others have long term goals.
Just like Dima is also following his plan. No one really believed he could work his way up the ranking so high. And look how he did.
The goal of these plans is to get the players to be ready on point to be at the peak of their level. Everything else is not in the focus and hence not so important. (Hope this makes sense)

I think CNT wasn't very satisfied with Wang Hao losing against Ryu Seung Min in 2004. So they "built" up ZJK to not let that happen again in 2008. And as we all know they were pretty successful.

In 2012 ZJK also wasn't No#1 in the ranking but still he was chosen for the Olympics. And again he didn't disappoint the coaches.

But he's not a robot and I think his losses in CTTSL and elsewhere only make him human.

I think LGL knows very well what he's doing and I would be very surprised to not see ZJK's best performance ever...

Let's wait and we soon shall see.

[Emoji3]

So to TL/DR (too long/didn't read) your comment, ZJK purpose may be to bring home Olympic gold and not necessarily anything else, so that is what his training regiment is geared towards? And as such, his performance outside of the olympics has less bearing on his status in LGL's eyes?

 

[TTFrenzy]

So to TL/DR (too long/didn't read) your comment, ZJK purpose may be to bring home Olympic gold and not necessarily anything else, so that is what his training regiment is geared towards? And as such, his performance outside of the olympics has less bearing on his status in LGL's eyes?

Exactly, check this interview ZJK states how he allocates his energy and why his form declined so much after the 2012 olympics.

Now most people forget that the chinese, even when taking ML into consideration who is the best pro tour winner right now, consider the pro tours mostly as practice matches and not the real thing.

There are several occasions that you can actually observe ML ZJK XX and the old trio of WLQ WH ML competing in protours like it is a practice match, especially against foreigners

What I mean is that you will find many routines in their game for practice purposes only, ML has won many sets in several pro tours serving ONLY pendulum sidespin and this year ZJK almost didnt execute his reverse pendulum serve at all , even against ma long

So I think there is a reason (s) behind this (I cant know for sure, but practice purpose is surely one) and personally Im really annoyed when people judge the players just from their recent results and make diagnosis like they know better from the coaching staff

 

[Suga D]

Thanks for sharing the interview, TTFrenzy.
Dan and Thomas should try to make a podcast with someone from the CNT (recent or former member doesn't matter).
I think that could be very enlightening.
[Emoji2]

 

[ttmonster]

Thanks TTFrenzy , looks like JaggedTranslate is doing a great job , will subscribe to his channel ..

Exactly, check this interview ZJK states how he allocates his energy and why his form declined so much after the 2012 olympics.

Now most people forget that the chinese, even when taking ML into consideration who is the best pro tour winner right now, consider the pro tours mostly as practice matches and not the real thing.

There are several occasions that you can actually observe ML ZJK XX and the old trio of WLQ WH ML competing in protours like it is a practice match, especially against foreigners

What I mean is that you will find many routines in their game for practice purposes only, ML has won many sets in several pro tours serving ONLY pendulum sidespin and this year ZJK almost didnt execute his reverse pendulum serve at all , even against ma long

So I think there is a reason (s) behind this (I cant know for sure, but practice purpose is surely one) and personally Im really annoyed when people judge the players just from their recent results and make diagnosis like they know better from the coaching staff