John philippe gatien - the glue era

[MartinGunn]

Heres a video of probably one of the best "speed glue era" players, Jean Philippe Gatien. Probably one of the most explosive and fastest ever european players, a lesson in footwork!!..........count how many forehand winners he makes from the backhand side, fading cross court!!!!

 

[thepongcast]

Yes, he was really fun to watch. I even have an old Stiga t-shirt with him on the back of it. Too bad it's almost faded away...

 

[Mr. RicharD]

The video is a bit biased. It made the Korean team look as if they couldn't score a single point when the fact is that they were fairly close sets. I believe many were only by 2 points. This was a crazy era lol as well. Speed glue + hidden serve + 38 mm. It was the era that the Euro players could afford to use shorter strokes making their footwork easier. Being Lefty I'm sure that helped Gatien as well. He's a great player, but terrible businessman.

I lost a bunch of respect for the guy when he tried to screw over Brian Pace. That and I heard his "products" are terrible. They had a lot of hype in them, but then failed to match up when tested out by some U.S. players. His know how doesn't quite reach the current generation of products.

 

[WiWa]

Well the vid is about gatien, so it only shows his point. I know this uploader has a similar video from Oh Sang Eun and more tt players. His channel is really worth a visit.

 

[YosuaYosan]

J.P Gatien is indeed a legend.
He almost become the first man ever to win a grand slam.

Waldner took his chance and claimed the title for him in the 1992 Olympics dayum maaan
Thats the first match where a grand slam is at stake together with an Olympic gold medal. TOTAL AWESOMENESS !

Correction !
He won both WTTC Singles and WC Singles in the next two years
Dang if he just know that he is going to win those two.
Anyway maybe Gatien could win those because of his loss to Waldner.

 

[nick]

So what happened to Gatien? He seemed to retire very suddenly, was he injured? Is he involved on the sport now?