Is ITTF good enough? NOOOOOO

[perniciousnc]

Very professional of ITTF:

1) In the wttc 2011 finals, WANG HAO's rubber was torn after the umpire checked it. And therefore, wang hao had to changed his rubber RIGHT BEFORE the match. The rubber was okay before. tat's y wang hao was really pissed in the beginning of the match.

2) they passed the women double cup to zhang jike LOL...

3) Adham Sharara always says he is changing for better, for lesser chinese domination.

he has been the chair i think for 11 years, and SO SOSO many changes he'd made. 21 points, service, ball size, olympic 2singleplayers from 1 clubs. in these 11 years, he has only increased the domination of chinese not decreased it. Things have only gone worst, and now he said he might change table tennis scoring from 11 points to something more like tennis.

I really don't think he's doing a good job at all. Not like going against chinese is that bad thing to do. But all those changes don't tackle the root of the problem. BUT ONLY SCREWING THE SPORT UP.

The sports can not progress if the rules keep changing (applies to everything, basketball soccer etc.)

Honestly, I think Adham Sharara is ruining the sports, and he is very far from doing the right thing to remove chinese domination. I am not a professional player myself, but I would rather let the chinese dominate than changing the rules all the time. seriously, basketball US dominates, that doesn't mean they would change all the rules n all that to not let US dominate...... wtf is wrong something needs to be changed

 

[perniciousnc]

it's high level of competition and skills that make the sports good. If olympic ends up to be like a amateur table tennis tournament. And it's like the only few times the public media pay attention to table tennis. so saddd

it is a tragedy for a lot of good chinese players to be in shsara's generation. Not even a chance to compete in olympics. n look at the qualified list for olympic... so sadd

 

[kaikaz]

Very professional of ITTF:

1) In the wttc 2011 finals, WANG HAO's rubber was torn after the umpire checked it. And therefore, wang hao had to changed his rubber RIGHT BEFORE the match. The rubber was okay before. tat's y wang hao was really pissed in the beginning of the match.

2) they passed the women double cup to zhang jike LOL...

3) Adham Sharara always says he is changing for better, for lesser chinese domination.

he has been the chair i think for 11 years, and SO SOSO many changes he'd made. 21 points, service, ball size, olympic 2singleplayers from 1 clubs. in these 11 years, he has only increased the domination of chinese not decreased it. Things have only gone worst, and now he said he might change table tennis scoring from 11 points to something more like tennis.

I really don't think he's doing a good job at all. Not like going against chinese is that bad thing to do. But all those changes don't tackle the root of the problem. BUT ONLY SCREWING THE SPORT UP.

The sports can not progress if the rules keep changing (applies to everything, basketball soccer etc.)

Honestly, I think Adham Sharara is ruining the sports, and he is very far from doing the right thing to remove chinese domination. I am not a professional player myself, but I would rather let the chinese dominate than changing the rules all the time. seriously, basketball US dominates, that doesn't mean they would change all the rules n all that to not let US dominate...... wtf is wrong something needs to be changed

I dont really agree with you.

The rubber was just not fully attached anymore and the chinese coach just had to glue it back on, of course its not the same feeling but he didnt have to change the rubber.

Adham sharara or whatever his name is indeed said he is trying to make the chinese domination less and I think he is doing not too bad to be honest.

Because of the 11 points sets you can only serve twice. I think its better because people like chen Qi, ma lin and others really have a good serve and if they can serve 5 times in a row they will definetely make 2-3 out of 5 points with only the serve which is not really good for spectators to watch I think.

The bigger ball is also a good thing because it slows down the game so the audience can actually watch the rallies. With the smaller ball it was almost impossible for someone who doesnt know anything about table tennis to follow the game.

Only 2 players can participate to the olympics is another good thing because you dont all the chinese to beat everyone and have chinese olympics right?

Also the ban of the speedglue was a good thing to make the sport more watchable for other people, but I would go even further and ban everything that can make the rubber or blade faster. I think there should only be 2 rubbers, you can either choose to take rubbers to defend or rubbers to attack. For example if you want to be a defender, you can choose long pips like curl or something (dont know much about defending rubbers) and if you want to be an attacker you can take sriver.

And to go even further, everyone has to play with the same blade aswell. And another thing would be if you play a competition match or tournament, there should always be official umpires that brings the equipment the players have to use for the match. So the umpires are really sure nothing has been done with the rubbes whatsoever.

I havent heard anything about the new score system like tennis but I think the score system is ok now, even tho I would like to have some longer matches when I play myself because sometimes I the matches are over too fast.

 

[Carina]

Yeah, at that rate, they might as well just restrict the number of players to just 1 per country and ensure every country gets a chance! LOL. Surely the spirit of the Olympics is about competition to the highest level. How would allowing more countries to get medals raise the level of play of the sport?

And mixing up the trophies for the Men's Singles and Women's Doubles was just a joke. They are of different shapes, for goodness sake!!! Have you seen they have carefully edited Zhang Jike's picture in their newsletter. LOL x2

 

[dici]

Right now, another big mistake they have done is limits the player to go out to play for other country when they don't have the chance to represent their own country. Now, you can only play for foreign country if you stay for at least 7 years over there. This is clearly that they don't want all those good chinese players (who not the best in China) to continue to dominate the Europe league.

But they have forgotten that what European players need the most. Higher quality, higher skill opponent, far better training parter that could help them to level the European players skill level.

 

[chughtai]

well dont take ny credit away from zhang jike he played awesome as far as the racket is concerned of wang hao well maybe the umpire shouldnt have done that because even though the racket had no fault he lost the game in his mind due to psychological factor

 

[perniciousnc]

the trophy is a joke? i really haven't heard about that. and i think it is not a good interpretation.

If it is REALLY a joke. that means they just joke around with the champion lol? n show how professional they are? I think that they certainly wont do that. Not risking their reputation n also ruining the champion's moment. I really think saying that is a joke, is a joke. I think the photo u were talking about is a second take. I am pretty positive that the "joke" did happen.

Arguably, I think some of the rules they changed was good. eg, I like the speed n amount of rallies right now. But the problem is

1) sports can't progress if they keep changing
2) not all the rules are changing for better, like players and stuff
3) they were targeting to lessen chinese domination, but look at these 11 years. Chinese domination has only increased <==

don't take me wrong, zhang jike and wang hao are the players i appreciate the most technique-wise. So i like watch both of them a lot. But I do like to believe that it was the umpire's fault with the rubber, the source was from liu guoliang n wang hao. I don't think they will lie about it. not like they can punish the umpire anyways.

And it is exactly the psychological effect, and the feeling. I think professional players would agree.

but i was expecting more of a match. im glad zhang jike won though, cause wang hao has already won once, and i wish zhang jike can acheive more in his career

 

[Dave Cochrane]

hi guys,
i umpired at the wttc 2011 rotterdam and really enjoyed the competition.
wang hao's rubber / racket had to be replaced not because it was torn, it just wasn't sticking to blade very well and had come loose which makes it illegal, the umpire isn't to blame the player is.
regarding rule changes over the last 11 years i would like to bring to your attention perhaps something you do not realise - rule changes are proposed either by an association of ittf or one of it's committees then are voted on at the ittf agm, for the change to be passed it needs a 75% majority vote by member associations.
adham sharara has no control over associations votes so to be fair all of these changes were clearly supported by 75% of associations in the ittf.
the enlargement of the ball and change to 11 up was for media purposes to try and make the game more exciting and of course easier to see on television and people watching table tennis especially in olympics have increased massively.
also the speedglue ban was excellent for the sport and levels the playing field a bit, it actually came about because in japan some guy either died or nearly died due to the toxic fumes from the old speed glue which clearly showed how nasty the stuff was that went in it so to try and promote a safer and healthier sport they decided to ban it and only approve water based glues - again this was probably proposed by the equipment committee who govern equipment etc.
if you look at chinese domination i think it may be a while before this is broken due to the fact that over 200 million people play in china which is about the same as all in europe.
so statistically the chinese just have one big factory producing players and a few out of that 200 million every few years will be of high level based on the fact it's their national sport.
plus it's well known they train harder than anyone else and the top players can help bring on the up and coming stars so it becomes a constant production line in a factory producing champions after champion.
i have no problem with adham as president of ittf and think he is doing ok.

 

[kaikaz]

Like DaveCochrane said, other player just have to practice more and harder and coaches need to find better training techniques to improve faster. For example if you see a chinese player at a pro tour, he plays ok and after a few months he just has amazingly improved in just a short time. If you see that with other players you dont see them much improving. Look at kenta, suss, ovtcharov, michael maze, etc, they all stay at the same level, maybe some of them have more consistency, but they dont really improve. Maybe with the schlager academy it will all get better, but in my opinion I think europe is capable of doing just the same thing as china, and produce lots of more decent players.

Look at sweden, why is waldner and persson still playing? Let Gerell or svensson get their chances of playing more on a higher level. They will never become the new waldner but they will get better.

Another thing that frustrates me is that we can all see the way china plays. Why is europe not copying them? China is known for making clones of people so they learn how to beat them.

European players should learn how to play like china. Not the chicken wing loops but the power loops like most of the china players are doing.

Anyone saw the match wang hao vs mizutani? This was just ridiculous, he couldnt get any decent backhand flip from wang hao back or not decent enough. How unprepared can you be? Why is mizutani always lobbing, you cant win like that. Why cant he play with more power?

why is koki niwa not playing more bigger tournaments, this kid needs his chances, he can improve alot more and better than mizutani and kenta.

I agree with DaveCochrane that any rule on getting less china dominance is good, but european players and coaches have to think more about how to play vs chinese players and try to copy them, its the only way they can ever beat china again. Or maybe they are waiting for a new uber player like waldner...

 

[perniciousnc]

i do realize the speed glue ban was both about health problem n entertainment.

and i think if i am right, the chinese proposed the bigger ball change?

yes ure right the president does not have that much
but he does have a lot of influence in the direction of the development, since nondominating countries are gonna blindly vote policy against the chinese anyways, like the 2 spot olympic things.

it's just sad that there aren't gonna be as much rallies and quality play in olympic

 

[Carina]

the trophy is a joke? i really haven't heard about that. and i think it is not a good interpretation.

If it is REALLY a joke. that means they just joke around with the champion lol? n show how professional they are? I think that they certainly wont do that. Not risking their reputation n also ruining the champion's moment. I really think saying that is a joke, is a joke. I think the photo u were talking about is a second take. I am pretty positive that the "joke" did happen.

You can replace the word "joke" with "ridiculous". My original statement would have been "And mixing up the trophies for the Men's Singles and Women's Doubles was just ridiculous". Simple as that. Of course the ITTF did not intend to play any joke on anyone! I have no doubt about that. But the fact that they really did mix up the trophies shows their carelessness and is completely unacceptable.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

I heartily disagree. The rule changes for service and game length have been good for the sport. There IS a lot of work to be done for table tennis and a lot of it needs to be around publicity and figuring out ways that table tennis can be transformed into a spectator sport so it can draw more crowds and have more profile events. MOST important of all there needs to be sponsorship and PRIZE MONEY worth playing professionally for. $50,000 US at the world cup is a joke compared to other professional sports of the same entertainment value. WORK TO BE DONE ITTF! but nonetheless they are not to be badmouthed for their efforts over the past decade by any means

 

[YosuaYosan]

ITTF is not perfect you know, but I believe they are trying hard.
If there is no ITTF, I dont know what table tennis would be now.

Be grateful.

 

[scylla24]

I dont really agree with you.
And to go even further, everyone has to play with the same blade aswell. And another thing would be if you play a competition match or tournament, there should always be official umpires that brings the equipment the players have to use for the match. So the umpires are really sure nothing has been done with the rubbes whatsoever.

I can maybe agree with some of the other stuff you said, but this is just taking it too far.

Why do the Chinese dominate? It's because thats their favorite sport, and they put in the resources and effort to be good at it. The problem is not that the ball is too small, or that speed glue is being used, its because other players around the world simply don't have the willingness to put in the same amount of effort as Chinese players do.

Aside from the change from 21 points to 11, in order to make the game more exciting, I wasn't in favor of the other game changes, like banning hidden serves, making the ball bigger, taking away speed glue. These rule changes are just lame ways to dumb down the game.

That having been said, I guess you can't blame the ITTF from wanting to remove some of the Chinese dominance, since their entire goal is to promote the game, and having one country dominate hurts their ability to do that. But on the other hand, China provides some of the largest tournaments for table tennis. Without the money and effort of China, table tennis would be a far weaker sport on a whole, because non Chinese players wouldn't have great opportunities to make extra money at the numerous tournaments in China.

"in these 11 years, he has only increased the domination of chinese not decreased it."- perniciousnc

I am pretty sure that the increased dominance of China in the past 11 years is more because China has truly honed their training and entire table tennis system. If they had not changed the rules that they did, I think we would probably see even more dominance. When the games were to 21, that gave the better player a greater chance to come back if they by bad luck fell behind in the beginning. With a 11 point game, the normally worse player is able to win some games just off of good fortune.
Just from a mathematical standpoint if the better player wins 66 percent of the points, a 21 point game allows that difference in win percentage to show much more clearly.

 

[YosuaYosan]

I dont really care about the changes of rule, because the one with more 'skill' will always win.. This happens to China..

What I dont really like about ITTF is the way they promote the game, other than that, its not a problem for me.
Unless they increased the ball twice the size of course

 

[azlan]

Like pingpongpom said, sponsorship is the way to go. ITTF should promote TT more, and instead of fiddling with the rules, they should bring in more sponsorships, world wide promotions etc. For example, tennis players in their ATP Tour, they play exhibition matches before the actual tourney. They go to schools, do coaching clinics for under privilege kids. And for sponsorships, BNP Paribas are sponsoring the ATP tour, Barclays sponsoring the EPL, various for golf..sponsorships doesn't have to be from TT associated businesses. There are thousands out there, and ITTF can do a lot better.
$50,000 for the champions are just ridiculous, these players are pro. I wouldn't want my kids to be a pro TT player, but I'll back them up if they want to be professional tennis players, golf or even football. So at the end of the day, TT will remain as a recreational game to most of us and that'll do absolutely nothing for the development of the sport.