Who do you think will win the Qatar Open 2019?

  • Xu Xin

    Votes: 21 27.3%
  • Lin Gaoyuan

    Votes: 7 9.1%
  • Tomokazu Harimoto

    Votes: 14 18.2%
  • Timo Boll

    Votes: 8 10.4%
  • Hugo Calderano

    Votes: 7 9.1%
  • Lee Sang Su

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Wong Chun Ting

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Koki Niwa

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Jun Mizutani

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other (Post Below)

    Votes: 20 26.0%

  • Total voters
    77
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The biggest weakness with short pimple is the opening loop. Always surprises me that no one use this more against him. The chinese started doing this after loosing two sets and this made him win the match. Rakza Po do not have much grip, so i think Falck felt that he needed more spin on the first opening loop. If he changed to a short pimple with more grip he would not have so much problem with this. If he dared to vary the placement on the opening loop i think he could have won. To much just in the chinese backhand, so he could step around confidently.

I figured Falck was trying a better serve return with his forehand, but the backhand with the pips was a real surprise.
 
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The Chinese love to say... "it is an undeniable fact" . The wording "undeniable" is overused and most of the time is laughable but there is truth behind it this time ... It is undeniable that ML is the GOAT!

What's wrong with you? Are you happy with making fun of "the Chinese" when praising ML? What the hell is the relationship between these two things? I do not want to talk about politics here, but I know exactly what you mean.
 
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What's wrong with you? Are you happy with making fun of "the Chinese" when praising ML? What the hell is the relationship between these two things? I do not want to talk about politics here, but I know exactly what you mean.

Don't worry about it. It's an undeniable fact that tropical is a Vietnamese American, who looks down on people of his own heritage, who has problems with the Chinese, and last but not least, who looks up to the brave Chinese Vietnamese who fought a war that he chose to escape from.

I find these folks so annoying. They say without betting (even a dollar) they won't play too seriously. I'd think it is their problem as I always play seriously in any matches against anyone but I am not the person who likes to bet (I don't like to gamble even a quarter as winning or losing do not make me feel great). Call me coward if you like. Certain people from certain countries love betting and I just want to stay away from them.

We got a bully as the POTUS but the Chinese got the bully in their blood. Two wrong's don't make a right. At least US doesn't invade Venezuela while the Chinese shamelessly occupied territory/water body don't belong to them.

Someone just loves to stir controversy!

I am a Vietnamese and used to have prejudice against immigrant Chinese in my old country. One time I was in a refugee camp in Malaysia and played chess with a helicopter gunman, a South Vietnamese soldier. He told me his parents were from Fukien China. He joined the South Vietnamese air force when he was 19 to fight the Northern communists to defend HIS country. I felt so ashamed as my parents changed my age to help me dodge the draft in case I failed college examination. From that point on I no longer judge immigrants as some of them may be more patriotic than I am.

Who are we to judge TOMO?
 
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What was that subtle little "burn" from Ma Long at the end of the interview? He thinks media is too nosy? :)

Perhaps he feels the media and the fans are getting a bit excessive with their curiosities over his personal affairs.
 
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Don't worry about it. It's an undeniable fact that tropical is a Vietnamese American, who looks down on people of his own heritage, who has problems with the Chinese, and last but not least, who looks up to the brave Chinese Vietnamese who fought a war that he chose to escape from.

Holy! Now he becomes the first in my blacklist.

Thanks for these info, Zeio!
 
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Holy! Now he becomes the first in my blacklist.

Thanks for these info, Zeio!

You're welcome. Still, I find our common enemy actually quite adorable, probably because I've gotten acclimated to the equatorial weather after extended exposure.

Whatever the case, he acknowledged ML there, which is few and far between, though with a mix of spice as usual.
 
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Don't worry about it. It's an undeniable fact that tropical is a Vietnamese American, who looks down on people of his own heritage, who has problems with the Chinese, and last but not least, who looks up to the brave Chinese Vietnamese who fought a war that he chose to escape from.

You don't even like the saying "it is undeniable"? or you are saying that "it is deniable" that ML is the GOAT?
 
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Perhaps to conclude this thread, I would say the biggest winner is surely CNT. More specifically, the women's team as the order in the men's team (ML/FZD/XX) is clearly still rather firm. If I understand it right, they had three main goals for Qatar Open and all were met.

1) To ascertain the effectiveness of the closed-door training. Without a doubt, the fact that the semi-finalists and finalists are all players who will be attending WTTC next month speaks well of their current forms (although DN's almost ZYL-like loss to WMY is still jarringly etched in my mind).

2) To cross swords with their major opponents, mainly the Japanese women. With some luck, Ishikawa, Ito and Hirano all encountered CNT players and fell pretty badly (but Hirano and Ito did put up decent fights against HZJ and DN respectively). Other notable names such as Feng Tianwei and Jeon Jihee were not spared either. A rather huge confidence boost I would imagine.

3) To squeeze out Ishikawa from the highest echelons of the World Ranking. With her straight games loss to SYS in the round of 32, it is confirmed that the team leader of Japan will bleed ranking points (the new system introduced in 2019 did not help her either) since her SF finish last year in Qatar is one of the major pillars of her current score. To make matters worse for her, Ishikawa's German Open (which she had won) will expire (or have expired at the point of typing this) as well by the end of March. If my calculations are right, the new order will be 1) Ding Ning, 2) Zhu Yuling, 3) Chen Meng, 4) Wang Manyu, 5) Liu Shiwen. This means that Ding, Chen, Wang and Liu will be the top 4 seeds for WTTC and thus will not meet each other until at least the SF if all goes according to plan. Unless they get Sun Yingsha in their respective quarters, it will be CNT women against the rest of the world.

Gotta give Liu Guoliang credit for his meticulous planning eh.
 
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its fair ISHIKAWA gets kicked out of her old ranking. It didn't reflect her real abilities.

Aww. Poor Ishikawa. I think some commentator once said one reason Ishikawa does well against others generally but not CNT is because her skills are very much influenced by the Chinese (courtesy of her Chinese coaches)? In that sense, the top Chinese women are very used to her style since it's what they train against back home. In contrast, Hirano and Ito were playing in ways that the CNT was not familiar with when they triple killed them all.

Stray observation, it seems like the chances of massacring the Chinese by foreign players are highest when you have DN and ZYL in the mix and in that order? For instance in 2017 DN -> ZYL -> CM and in 2018 LSW -> DN -> ZYL. Haha.
 
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@Janard

it maybe one factor for sure
but when we look at her record, i'm sure the mental aspect plays a huge part.
Ishikawa is for example a better player than Fukuhara. But Ai-chan has had her day more than once against the top Chinese in her long career. Kasumi not even once.
 
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Janard

... If my calculations are right, the new order will be 1) Ding Ning, 2) Zhu Yuling, 3) Chen Meng, 4) Wang Manyu, 5) Liu Shiwen.

D.N. 16515
Z.Y.L. 16059
C.M. 14899
WANG Manyu 14705
L.S.W. 14550
ISHIKAWA Kasumi 14523
 
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Janard

... If my calculations are right, the new order will be 1) Ding Ning, 2) Zhu Yuling, 3) Chen Meng, 4) Wang Manyu, 5) Liu Shiwen.

D.N. 16515
Z.Y.L. 16059
C.M. 14899
WANG Manyu 14705
L.S.W. 14550
ISHIKAWA Kasumi 14523

Ouch. And Asian Cup points will not take effect until after WTTC ~
 
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