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Japan Open 2017
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TTD Team vs Pongfinity OUT NOW on our YT Channel
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TTD Team vs Pongfinity OUT NOW on our YT Channel
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hi guys, just back from the Stadium where i saw a lot of awesome matches...
HIRANO - JEON
LEBESSON - FZD
ITO - WANG
NIWA - MA Long
is what caught most of my attention but i did see some of the rest as well, and could see some players really very close when they were walking around. Actually i was with the whole French team when cheering for Lebesson
Hirano did not play a great match, her play became too predictable. but in the end, she managed to pin better the Korean in her BH side, and vary more her attacks, her BH became more fluid as well in some great points. Very entertaining
Lebesson had a great head start. It was the morning and FZD didn't seem totally woken up ! The French got an extra bit of luck as well to pocket the first 2 sets. I'm not sure but it looks from there FZD did some adjustments, just went back an extra 20cm ? to get those massive FH down the line attacks from the leftie Lebesson, and he used more the short game. That was enough and anyway it felt Lebesson was already 120% while FZD only 75%, he really did not move very much compared as usual.
Ito wasted a 2-0 lead and set points to lead 3-0. She played really agressive, her BH fast and flat shots are really impressive. But there's not enough consistency (yet ? or will there be ever ?) to beat the Chinese. Its difficult to get ULTRA-consistent with this style. She gave also too many signs of nervousness throughout the match. The Chinese seemed stressed a lot especially in the beginning but she became more confident and positive. Her style is in between Ding Ning and Li Xiao Xia i would say.
Mima's BH has awesome shots but can she raise her consistency ? Maybe less errors in FH than a while ago, but still too many. and even her BH side is making mistakes which can't be allowed at this level, like on matchpoint...
MA Long vs NIWA was a crowdpleaser too, but despite MA Long seemingly being "only" 70 or 80% he pocketed the first 2 sets as NIWA could not convert his 10-8 lead in the 2nd with the serve... Only in the last set did he seem to play "for real", and he destroyed the poor NIWA.
HIRANO - JEON
LEBESSON - FZD
ITO - WANG
NIWA - MA Long
is what caught most of my attention but i did see some of the rest as well, and could see some players really very close when they were walking around. Actually i was with the whole French team when cheering for Lebesson
Hirano did not play a great match, her play became too predictable. but in the end, she managed to pin better the Korean in her BH side, and vary more her attacks, her BH became more fluid as well in some great points. Very entertaining
Lebesson had a great head start. It was the morning and FZD didn't seem totally woken up ! The French got an extra bit of luck as well to pocket the first 2 sets. I'm not sure but it looks from there FZD did some adjustments, just went back an extra 20cm ? to get those massive FH down the line attacks from the leftie Lebesson, and he used more the short game. That was enough and anyway it felt Lebesson was already 120% while FZD only 75%, he really did not move very much compared as usual.
Ito wasted a 2-0 lead and set points to lead 3-0. She played really agressive, her BH fast and flat shots are really impressive. But there's not enough consistency (yet ? or will there be ever ?) to beat the Chinese. Its difficult to get ULTRA-consistent with this style. She gave also too many signs of nervousness throughout the match. The Chinese seemed stressed a lot especially in the beginning but she became more confident and positive. Her style is in between Ding Ning and Li Xiao Xia i would say.
Mima's BH has awesome shots but can she raise her consistency ? Maybe less errors in FH than a while ago, but still too many. and even her BH side is making mistakes which can't be allowed at this level, like on matchpoint...
MA Long vs NIWA was a crowdpleaser too, but despite MA Long seemingly being "only" 70 or 80% he pocketed the first 2 sets as NIWA could not convert his 10-8 lead in the 2nd with the serve... Only in the last set did he seem to play "for real", and he destroyed the poor NIWA.
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The sticky bit is stuck.
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The sticky bit is stuck.
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Yes, it keeps baffling me that somehow people drone on and on about ZJK and Samsonov losing it, while totally ignoring the awesome strength displayed in these games by the opponent they lost to. I'm repeating myself here, but I was there when LSS got the better of both, and really think that the significant thing to notice there was LSS' strength rather than ZJKs and Samsonovs weaknesses. Yet somehow many choose not to see that, apparently.
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Lee sang su is no joke, he was the youngest player to ever win a pro tour till FZD surpassed him and he had always super aggressive style but lacked consistency, people should start watching full matches more.
Niwa is now also in a critical point (I dont think he is far away from making another surprise against FZD or ML), he had lots of times the initiative against ma long but made mistakes which of course are normal when you always counterattack hard against one of the top rally players in the world. It was also great to see him use the violin receive and listening ma lin's celebration "grunt" as a coach this time
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I still believe ZJK was too passive against LSS. He was immobile and the few times he bh-flicked it went well so why not doing it more. But generally just too passive and without fire. Motivation beats class any day.
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CNT will release soon an interview where LGL explain what bad circumstances lead to LGY's loss.
He will admit that LSS was better a tiny-little bit than they expected in one short sentence.
Then he will speak about the other CNT player good performance.
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If we made FZD 4 years younger and gave him a sex change, he would play and look like Sun Yingsha. The Lady is impressive.
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Great seeing Ma Lin on the sidelines, he did make it after all.
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Yes but he wasnt mentally comfortable because LSS was super aggressive and cornered ZJK outsmarting him in his own patterns,ZJK said LSS was better so end of story. Yes ZJK was not at his peak form but it simply does not matter when u get outplayed so hard, same thing goes for ML and XX when they lost to asian champs, they were in good condition yet they were surprised by Jeong sangeun and koki niwa
The CNT players are not gods, they have so far excellent teamwork they study opponents carefully they have on their backs grand slam or world olympic champs coaching them
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Maybe it's unfair to compare Jike 2010-2014 with the 2017 Jike since people age, but just go back and watch a few clips from back then. His mobility was the best in the world at the time, now he looks almost bothered when having to move around, not stimulated and hungry chasing the ball. And he's not old by any means, but maybe some physical stuff is still nagging him.
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No doubt his passion seems to not be the same or maybe he is hindered because mentally he is not self confident as he was, injuries played definitely a role but he said it himself he lost because he didnt play well.
On the other hand a superstar will never admit in public and in media interviews that his passion is not the same anymore, the coaching staff admitted that after the rio olympics, but not himself
What I still find remarkable and in can have both negative and positive outcomes is that he is still extremely stubborn character, LSS in the set that ZJK won served 3-4 serves in wide BH and ZJK missed the first 2-3 (i dont remember exactly) executing the same banana too hasty trying to finish the point by adding sidespin, 3 serves, 3 identical mistakes and he did those mistakes over and over
Im not saying he should change his playstyle but definitely needs to readjust his mindset when blundering easy balls.
Two phrases have stuck in my mind about ZJK whole carreerr : The one is by him long before he won anything big and he said "I just want to loop the hell out of each ball because it makes me feel super great"
and other one is by xiao zhan when they multiball together "patience , patience , patience just put the ball back on the table" which shows exactly the biggest "problem" of ZJK whether he was winning or not
Frankly and based on both player's performances even if ZJK didnt make such stupid mistakes LSS was so good and composed that he could have won 4-3 4-2 it does not matter anyway
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We share the same playing philosophy with ZJK
i'd like to be able to loop each ball but i can't ....
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In the meantime, Hirano was routed 4:0 by Chen Meng. I was super excited about Hirano after Asians but it seems to be a little premature to perceive Hirano as the next big thing.
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I watched the match. There is a lot of good stuff in there still. The problem is that Hirano is still unable to appreciate what she did to the Chinese and thinks that the degree to which she beat then should have given her some margin. But what the Chinese have done is study in great detail how to beat her and given all their top players lots of practice on implementing the template. So Hirano has to rebuild her game extensively to add more variation, especially on serve and in dealing with backspin.
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I believe CNT always had a good hang of Hirano. Hirano piled up loss after loss in CSL last year. CNT never thought she was a threat to them. But she went home and used her CSL exp to improve her game a few notches . And that really caught CNT by surprise . The surprise factor is not there anymore and sadly things are back to normal for CNT. You are right. To beat CNT , you need to continuosly upgrade and bring new things to your arsenal.
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I agree -you can see that they are doing specific new things designed for Hirano. They are pushing her serve extremely heavy much more rather than pushing to get into a rally. She served her topspin kicker to Chen's backhand and Chen looped it without hesitation which Hirano was completely surprised by. Hirano won her fair share of rally points, but she no longer won any cheap points off serve and she often looped balls into the net. I think this was the difference and was enough to turn around the score. Chen even returned a couple of half-long serves over the table with her backhand.
The fact that Hirano wasn't out classed in the rallies shows where the problem is. And the fact that her serve and return game has been taken so thoroughly apart means that it needs more than what she has. The Chinese are so confident they have even spoken a couple of times about the specific things they do to her.
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Yes, obviously, the Chinese worked hard on neutralizing HIRANO. But the girl is still young, and can improve a lot. Its part of her game to make mistakes as she takes max risk, but if she improves her consistency she can do better. same for ITO.
I didn't watch her against CHENG, but i did against DING at WTTC and against JEON at Japan Open, the problem is she is a bit too predictable. Against JEON she was able to change a little bit her tactics at the end and it was enough. Against the Chinese she needs to add new weapons to confuse them more. Its now like their opponent KNOW in advance where's she's gonna hit the ball...
she needs to add a few new serves as well, and I felt she needs to vary more the pace of the rally.
same for ITO, at times she just wanted to hit hard all the balls but the Chinese just kept putting it all back on the table. But she played even better when in the middle of the rally, she slowed the ball to surprise her opponent to get a decisive advantage. I felt ITO improved a lot in rallies but she tried too many of those FH - sidespin ? - blocks or flat hits , where usually other players would loop. In respect to her attitude, she reminded me of NIWA. However her style looks a bit like FUKUHARA, but much faster and agressive.
I didn't watch her against CHENG, but i did against DING at WTTC and against JEON at Japan Open, the problem is she is a bit too predictable. Against JEON she was able to change a little bit her tactics at the end and it was enough. Against the Chinese she needs to add new weapons to confuse them more. Its now like their opponent KNOW in advance where's she's gonna hit the ball...
she needs to add a few new serves as well, and I felt she needs to vary more the pace of the rally.
same for ITO, at times she just wanted to hit hard all the balls but the Chinese just kept putting it all back on the table. But she played even better when in the middle of the rally, she slowed the ball to surprise her opponent to get a decisive advantage. I felt ITO improved a lot in rallies but she tried too many of those FH - sidespin ? - blocks or flat hits , where usually other players would loop. In respect to her attitude, she reminded me of NIWA. However her style looks a bit like FUKUHARA, but much faster and agressive.
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