I am happy to say that Ma Long is the best player right now. And the best small tournament player I've seen. He's darn good. You can say he's great. But best ever???? Come on. He would have to earn that with more than winning small tournaments. With more than winning one WTTC.
Best right now, sure. Pretty soon that won't be the case any more. Right now he is the best.
And, truthfully, what Wang Hao did was expose a weakness. Did he fall apart? Yes. But the tactics caused the mental collapse in those three MAJOR loses.
Wang Hao was even pretty kind to ML in games 4 and 5 of 2013 WTTC semi-final. He stopped doing the short game tactics. He tried to take the last game going toe to toe with Ma Long and couldn't. So in game 6 he went back to the tactics that ML couldn't handle and, after playing darn well and winning two games, he fell apart and lost big in the 6th game.
Has he fixed that? To some extent. But there is also, right now, nobody who can exploit his weakness as long as Zhang Jike is playing as badly as he is.
But, anyway, Wang Liqin should be under consideration as one of the best ever. And I would actually list him over any of the guys around today.
You can't ask someone from a previous era to have the techniques that were only adapted recently. But you can judge when someone does completely dominate their era. And Wang Liqin did get 3 WTTC singles titles.
Another thing to understand. Watch Ma Long's Quarter Final match with Oh Sang Eun in the 2011 WTTC. He destroyed OSE. Completely crushed him. And was playing well against Wang Hao before Wang Hao moved to the center of the table and pulled out the short game tactics and those Jedi mind-tricks that ML could not handle.
Another thing to understand with Ma Long. He is much better when he runs out to a big lead at the beginning than he is when someone really fights hard against him. His recent win against FZD in the Grand Tour Finals is a good sign that he is getting better at fighting when he is down.
To be viewed as the best ever, which I think is possible, he would have to win a few more WTTCs. An Olympic Gold would help. But it wouldn't mean as much as the WTTC Titles in my book. Why the number and broadness of the competition. The World Cup, the Grand Finals and even the Olympics don't have as much competition in the tournament once you qualify. The World Championships has so many more high level players to get past.
As far as Walder, I personally don't like titles like best ever. He was definitely among the best of his era and one of the best ever.
There are really too many great players.
But one thing he did, as part of that team from Sweden, he led the Swedish team to end the Chinese dominance of that era. That was no small accomplishment. China was the best as they are now. And Waldner was a good part of how the Swedish team succeeded in taking over that title for a good part of a decade.
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