Nasty rubber setup, another great ERT video

[TensorBackhand]

Some of her teammates like Nagasaki Miyu and Kihara Miyuu are ranked in the 20's. They are good pros, but can't really challenge the top 6 Chinese players.

So I would guess that Idesawa never surpasses this area. Her challenging of a top 6 Pro is a fluke, that is my current assessment.

 

[hclnnkhg]

Some of her teammates like Nagasaki Miyu and Kihara Miyuu are ranked in the 20's. They are good pros, but can't really challenge the top 6 Chinese players.

So I would guess that Idesawa never surpasses this area. Her challenging of a top 6 Pro is a fluke, that is my current assessment.

Pip players really can't win against you...
If they can consistently challenge top players or become top players themselves, you'd say they have unfair advantage with using pips.
If they only trouble top players once in a while, you'd say they are relying on pips to get random wins out of top players.
If they are even worse, have no chances against top players, you'd say "pips can't get to the top, you've got to use double inverted".
How can pips be so unfair that they deserve to be banned, but at the same time they aren't good enough to produce World No. 1s?
What will it take for you to acknowledge that pips are as respectable as inverted, as it takes skill and hard work to master, just like looping with inverted?

 

[NextLevel]

Maybe top 100 or 200, but outside of the Top 15. If she remains in the top 15 over a reasonably long period, I would be very surprised and I would consider my assessment of her wrong.

If she remains in the top 30, she would've surpassed my expectations, but still doesn't change my basic opinion that she is a bit of a equipment fluke to trouble the top 6 elite players.

So she is Japanese, she is almost never going to have a chance to get an international ranking in the top 30 unless she has a really strong streak in a domestic tournament. Or she gets the money to sponsor herself and then some.

If you consider chopping an equipment fluke (see Ganna Gaponova vs Wang Manyu or Hitomi Sato vs Ding Ning) or Mima Ito's initial success an equipment fluke, then sure, I agree with you. Even Bernadette Szocs needs her serve that people struggle to return with the forehand. Qian Tianyi has struggled against lots of players, nothing special to make note of, they have invested a lot of time in building her up because of her potential from the junior days and the lack of lefties on the CNT.

So do you think He Zhuoja would not be top 30 if China let her play against the rest of the world as part of the first team?

 

[TensorBackhand]

Pip players really can't win against you...
If they can consistently challenge top players or become top players themselves, you'd say they have unfair advantage with using pips.
If they only trouble top players once in a while, you'd say they are relying on pips to get random wins out of top players.
If they are even worse, have no chances against top players, you'd say "pips can't get to the top, you've got to use double inverted".
How can pips be so unfair that they deserve to be banned, but at the same time they aren't good enough to produce World No. 1s?
What will it take for you to acknowledge that pips are as respectable as inverted, as it takes skill and hard work to master, just like looping with inverted?

Well I'm a big fan of Sun Yang. He has a beautiful style, awesome forehand and chopping backhand. His style takes great technique, so I'm really hoping he is the future World Champion. He really earns his points and he is a great player.

But to me, Idesawa is abusing her equipment to win games. And a lot of 1600 LP guys are abusing their equipment. A lot of guys purposely won't use their LP in the club during warmup so that you are not used to it and they want to try to get more advantage to win the game. They know that people don't have the time and resources to practice enough against LP and use it to their advantage.

 

[hclnnkhg]

Well I'm a big fan of Sun Yang. He has a beautiful style, awesome forehand and chopping backhand. His style takes great technique, so I'm really hoping he is the future World Champion. He really earns his points and he is a great player.

But to me, Idesawa is abusing her equipment to win games. And a lot of 1600 LP guys are abusing their equipment. A lot of guys purposely won't use their LP in the club during warmup so that you are not used to it and they want to try to get more advantage to win the game. They know that people don't have the time and resources to practice enough against LP and use it to their advantage.

You need to be more specific with how Idesawa is abusing her equipment but not LP choppers. From what I saw she's just flat hitting a lot, which is common with short pips players, e.g. Mima.

 

[hclnnkhg]

a lot of 1600 LP guys are abusing their equipment. A lot of guys purposely won't use their LP in the club during warmup so that you are not used to it and they want to try to get more advantage to win the game. They know that people don't have the time and resources to practice enough against LP and use it to their adadvantage.

By not using LP during warmup, that also means they aren't warm with their LP, so that's fair. Nobody said you have to show every tricks during warmup. Choppers often don't chop during warmup, is that unfair? Koki Niwa doesn't do chop blocks during warmup, is thay unfair? You can choose to warmup with your FH only and hide your super BH loopkill from your opponents.

 

[NextLevel]

You need to be more specific with how Idesawa is abusing her equipment but not LP choppers. From what I saw she's just flat hitting a lot, which is common with short pips players, e.g. Mima.

He lives in this imaginary world where just hitting a ball with pips is all it takes. He doesn't want to learn so he makes pips sound like magic to live in his fantasy world. If I got to play him, I would just use pips so he would give up.

In general, pips without friction are harder to hit with. As a rule, the more disturbing the pips, the harder it is to play a strong offensive stroke with. So what Idesawa does for the most part is scrub spin off the ball, like He Zhuoja, with her backhand counterhitting. The short pips forehand is no different from what Xiaona Shan or He Zhiwen does or even Mattias Falck, hitting with spinny short pips. Again, the more disturbing the pips, the harder it is to hit a strong offensive stroke with.

You need to read the ball, hit fast and early, and be extremely consistent off the bounce. These are hard skills in modern TT, similar to how serve and volley gets killed by baseline topspin in tennis. Close to the table players are abused by very powerful loops. To do this at the world class level takes practice. Anyone who thinks it is just a matter of equipment is fooling themselves, you will have many days where your timing is off against quality loops.

 

[Scarfed Garchomp]

All this discussion makes me remember this hilarious gem of a video by Greg Letts. I still say "I like to put heavy topspin on the ball" in my mind to this day

 

[NextLevel]

All this discussion makes me remember this hilarious gem of a video by Greg Letts. I still say "I like to put heavy topspin on the ball" in my mind to this day

That's my signature at mytt, inspired by that video

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

TensorBackhand lives in an imaginary world indeed because he loses badly to pips and he never plays any at his training. he's stuck in the middle of a local TT desert where there are no pips players around him, and he thinks his desert is the whole world. I used to think like him when i was a beginner. Long Pips players were under-represented at my club. There was only 1 veteran I would regularly play with (he had some version of Curl). I would piss in my pants every time before any tournament match with a LP player.
But then i started learning how to play against them. Of course if you never practice with pips, you're not gonna find out magically how to play against this style on tournament day.

In Japan, maybe around 1/4 of the players have pips, short or long, this % increases in veteran competitions and among girls. I will always make sure i practice with pips players regularly and especially before an important competition.

It is part of the game, if you don't like pips, play tennis or badminton or squash, or make your own league. If however you are a TT player, it is your responsibility to find a way to train against pips. there is no excuse. your training partner just needs to block. or do multi ball or push a bit. its not necessary he is a strong pips experienced player.

To this day, personally i still struggle against LP players. i take it as a challenge, it just shows the weaknesses in my fundamentals. My friend E almost NEVER loses against pips player. His level is 2-3 levels above mine, but it reflects the fact he is comfortable against this style. OTOH because i'm familiar with E, i always have a chance to win against him, even in tournaments. This reflects the amount of time i spend playing with him.

 

[TensorBackhand]

You all are affected by default bias. You view LP as normal or acceptable because that is the status quo.

If you start with a blank sheet and design a new sport, having unequal equipment would be a bizarre idea.

But of course I am exaggerating a little bit. Its not like ive never won vs LP before.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Think of it another way

the current reality of TT is that a large minority (20%+ ? ) of players are pips (SP+LP) players, this % can be even larger for some specific categories (age, sex, region)...

ITTF just can't tell those people to give up their playing style - and maybe give up the sport - because of a few people like you complaining that they don't know how to handle pips players...

Of course rules are a social construct. they are not immutable , and there's already been a lot of rule changes in TT (ball size, plastic ball, counting rules, and rules regarding rubbers...), just like many other sports. But given the situation, banning pips isn't gonna happen anytime soon.

so you either just complain and cry about it in an online forum, or you enjoy your sport, and learn how to bit pips players. because they are actually very limited in what they can do, especially the LP, so with some practice, it should be actually easier to beat those players than other ones.

this whole discussion is stupid to me.

 

[hclnnkhg]

You all are affected by default bias. You view LP as normal or acceptable because that is the status quo.

If you start with a blank sheet and design a new sport, having unequal equipment would be a bizarre idea.

But of course I am exaggerating a little bit. Its not like ive never won vs LP before.

Hurricane and Tenergies are different rubbers, which one do you ban?

Even if you ban long pimples there would still be antispin rubbers. Or are you suggesting we should have a range of surface friction and rebound index of rubbers?

What about blades and handles. 5 ply 7 ply ALC carbon ZLC 1 ply hinoki, flared straight penhold etc. which one are you planning to make standard?

It is bizarre for me to hear from you, a senior EJ to suggest we should have less variety of equipments

 

[TensorBackhand]

Hurricane and Tenergies are different rubbers, which one do you ban?

Even if you ban long pimples there would still be antispin rubbers. Or are you suggesting we should have a range of surface friction and rebound index of rubbers?

What about blades and handles. 5 ply 7 ply ALC carbon ZLC 1 ply hinoki, flared straight penhold etc. which one are you planning to make standard?

It is bizarre for me to hear from you, a senior EJ to suggest we should have less variety of equipments

Well ittf makes the rules and thats fine. But if it was up to me i would ban all pips and antispin. It doesnt make sense that the equipment functions in opposite physical rules.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

The most important part of this video, as it relates to this thread happens at about 3:20 on the video time clock.

 

[TensorBackhand]

Well you can disagree, as the saying goes: "that's what makes a market".

But bottom line is, if I saw Roger Feder playing Nadal and Federer's slice produced underspin as expected, and Nadal's slice produced topspin, I would think its just a retarded sport. If Nadal's drive shot produced underspin, that's just stupid to me.

Maybe I'm OCD, but that's just how I see it. Slice shot producing topspin? Shaking my head

 

[TensorBackhand]

Imagine TT doesn't exist and you have an idea for TT as a new sport. You go to an investor to pitch your idea.

"I have a great idea. It's tennis, but we play on a table. But here's the big draw. With 1 racket you generate underspin when you slice just like in tennis. With another racket you generate topspin when you slice. The same slicing motion creates 2 different spins to cause extra confusion! We will call it "pimples"

 

[NextLevel]

Well you can disagree, as the saying goes: "that's what makes a market".

But bottom line is, if I saw Roger Feder playing Nadal and Federer's slice produced underspin as expected, and Nadal's slice produced topspin, I would think its just a retarded sport. If Nadal's drive shot produced underspin, that's just stupid to me.

Maybe I'm OCD, but that's just how I see it. Slice shot producing topspin? Shaking my head

Yeah, because you have no analogy or understanding of the limitations. The slice doesn't produce topspin, the slice has to block the ball while letting the spin pass through. Your analogy makes little sense because spin is just not as big a component of tennis. It just isn't other than using it to hit the ball harder or getting ball movement on some strokes. It's really hard to hit and let spin pass through in tennis.

What about the weird bounces that happened in tennis on grass and clay? We should bring those into table tennis too? Paint lines so the ball skids? So that whoever hits the lines gets an advantage?

It's hilarious how Greg Letts captured exactly the kind of player complaining about pips in his youtube skits. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

 

[Migzkulit]

I will be honest, playing with my paddle against my co-workers at the company tournament, I did ask myself this question...

When you hit so good, you gotta ban yourself.