Question: What makes Ma Long's strokes so Unique?

[Siva Schopenhauer]

Question: What makes Ma Long's strokes so Unique, Powerful, Precise from all others?

Hi Guys, I am pondering over this question for some time. I couldn't answer it on my own on why his FH strokes are so powerful. Hisability to recover also seems very fast from those full body strokes, How is it possible only for ML to have such an advantage compared to CNT pals and other top elite players. Please enlighten me

 

[Boogar]

I would like to know as well

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

ML's FH ain't got nottin' on this guy's:

And this guy's FH was the stuff legends are made of:

Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

ML's FH ain't got nottin' on this guy's:

And this guy's FH was the stuff legends are made of:

Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

Future Olympic champion getting choked by the former.

I feel WL's wasn't on the same level as ML. But, his BH on technique, precision was way ahead of his time.

 

[NextLevel]

Future Olympic champion getting choked by the former.

I feel WL's wasn't on the same level as ML. But, his BH on technique, precision was way ahead of his time.

Why do you feel this? Would love to hear your reasoning.

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

Why do you feel this? Would love to hear your reasoning.

That is why it is called feeling. Feeling is not always preceded by thinking rather intuition which as a species we are gifted with

 

[CroneOne]

I think ML draws a huge amount of power from his weight transfer from the legs. There's a big rotation and transfer driven
from the legs to the core with all of it landing on his left leg. Then you add on the most likely perfect timing and bat contact on the ball and finish it with those special H3 rubbers everyone talks about and you have a rocket FH.

Check out his weight transfer....

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Wow, fun to here someone say that their intuition tells them that Wang Liqin's FH wasn't the FH that bludgeon a generation of TT Pros and won 3 WTTC Gold Medals in singles.

What does intuition have to do with seeing for yourself that Wang Liqin's FH dominated the world for 7 straight years.


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[Trismegistus]

Wow, fun to here someone say that their intuition tells them that Wang Liqin's FH wasn't the FH that bludgeon a generation of TT Pros and won 3 WTTC Gold Medals in singles.

What does intuition have to do with seeing for yourself that Wang Liqin's FH dominated the world for 7 straight years.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

Perhaps it's aesthetic preference? I always found ML's forehand to be the most aesthetically pleasing, though not as powerful as some others.

I also think ML's forehand may be superior to WLQs in some situations (e.g. fast counterloops close to the table). It's one of my pet peeves when we compare shots....what exactly are we talking about? There's so many dimensions to each of these "shots" and some players excel at some of those dimensions and not at others.

 

[ttmonster]

I don't know why would anybody have this "feeling" unless they started following table tennis after Ma Long started dominating pro tours. There was no answer to WLQ's forehand till the day he retired, gluing or not speed gluing , 38 mm or 40 mm . Even when he was about to retire , the only way the other guys could beat him and it was a very small subset comprising of ZJK and Ma Long was to finally open up his backhand and attack his backhand ... show me one video where anybody has gone to WLQ's forehand consistently and beaten him on that count even on WLQ's worst days , and don't show me William Henzels Tomahawk episode in olympics even when he lost he did trouble WLQ only with his serve .... and aesthetics don't count a lot of Chinese coaches used the same BS to put WLQ down initially and it did not eventually matter , if it counted then probably the best forehand in the world is owned by Liu Shiwen or Ai Fukuhara ...

 

[ttmonster]

And to answer your original question , it has nothing to do with anything else other than the fact that he is the most optimally built player with the best physical condition who has put in 8-10 hours a day hitting multiballs with the top coaches in china since the day he picked up a paddle , which was probably when he was 5 or 6 IDK. He still hits a much more flatter trajectory than ZJK and was consistently getting into trouble when many lesser players were blocking him down the line off the bounce on the backhand, e.g Koki Niwa. He then put in tons of hours to improve his backhand and serve so that he can finally execute this massive forehand. Technique wise, ZJK and FZD is ahead of him , its just that ZJK does not have physical condition to execute it any more and FZD has a deficit of many thousand hours of practice with hone his skills with CNT coaches. Table tennis is not about one stroke its about a complete game , a stroke may stand out because of some misguided perceptions but its like the tip of the iceberg the captain of Titanic saw ...

 

[passifid]

i wouldn't get too mad with someone for overestimating the progress you can make in sport. In the 1956 Olympics where Larissa Latynina won many medals while pregnant including a gold in vault (hint, its school level now)
(gif didnt work so i'll leave a link http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m87wxuPUOY1qdlh1io1_400.gif)
examples like this are shown to demonstrate progress due to materials and training advancements etc but it often leaves out the fact many records are not broken for 10+ years (take the above lady, she set the record for most Olympic medals for 48 years), its all too easy to get caught up in the now and the talk of the time and not pay homage to recent past champions.(and equally you still get people claiming the most advanced players of a sport were from the 50s which is mostly nonsence)
so its likely that ML has a great forehand however it might be better to look at champions gone by when the sport was FH dominated to find the best FH, since as it was stated above recent major game changes are more in the form of backhand strokes.

 

[NextLevel]

That is why it is called feeling. Feeling is not always preceded by thinking rather intuition which as a species we are gifted with

I know the feeling. The problem is that it is this same feeling that leads to beginners trying to "emulate" pros by hitting the ball as hard as possible rather than learning to spin the ball and improving their spin generation and then learning to hit fast balls with high levels of spin.

In other words, the feelings can be completely wrong when they do not understand the nuances of what is happening. Of course, the feelings do have merit, but on something as complicated as this, we need the right kind of balance between feeling and facts.

As long as you aren't trying to claim your feelings are infallible or that you are an expert on the issue (none of us here really are, though those of us with more table tennis experience might have relevant insights to share), it would help to share the basis of your feelings so that there is more information we can use to tease out some of the views you, me and others may have on this subject and how we all arrive at them. Of course, you may not be able to identify all of them, but just what you can identify and write about here will be helpful.

 

[Nuke Skywalker]

His superior equipment.

 

[Archosaurus]

Ma Long probably doesn't have the all out best forehand in table tennis history.

However, he's probably the most technically complete player to date. Maybe his forehand looks so much better than the rest of the crowd (Hint: It doesn't. Look at FZD.) because he can set it up so well with the rest of his strokes, compared to someone like WLQ who claimed that his forehand is not really part of a complete system with his backhand.

 

[NextLevel]

Ma Long probably doesn't have the all out best forehand in table tennis history.

However, he's probably the most technically complete player to date. Maybe his forehand looks so much better than the rest of the crowd (Hint: It doesn't. Look at FZD.) because he can set it up so well with the rest of his strokes, compared to someone like WLQ who claimed that his forehand is not really part of a complete system with his backhand.

This is an interesting point. Would love to hear the reasoning that supports this.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Ma Long is great. His total game is way up there.

But there are really quite a few instances of amazing forehands.

Ma Lin had some crazy FH shots as well.

And we might as well look at this from a historical perspective. Traditionally CNT is known for Penhold players with strong attacking FHs and a style where they use that powerful FH to overpower their opponents.

When Sweden came along and ended CNT dominance for a period in the late 1980s through the mid 1990s CNT did something previously unheard of. They sent a player to Sweden to train and learn the style that was dominating them.

That player was Kong Linghui: the first shakehand two winged looper on the CNT. At least as far as I am aware.

Here: one of my favorite matches ever:

Wang Liqin was the next evolution of the two winged looper playing shakehand with that crazy almost penhold style FH.

I am going to say that Wang Liqin's FH is, perhaps, the best SHAKEHAND FH so far. Power, consistency and versatility. The guy kept pounding away and did not miss. He beat his opponents into submission with that amazing FH. But his game was not as complete as Ma Long's. There are many-many things that Ma Long does better than Wang Liqin. But WL was an innovator. Nobody really did what he did when he came out. And the groundwork was laid for that innovation by Kong.

ZJK was actually a break from that FH dominant style player on the CNT. His innovation was having a BH that could control the points, the rallies, and subdue the power of a player who wanted to turn to the FH from the BH side. FZD, I have a feeling, will end up being a natural progression from that when he fully comes into his own.

And Ma Long is clearly a progression from WLiqin. But not because the FH is better but because of how WELL he does EVERYTHING.


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[NextLevel]

I know someone who played both Ma Lin and Wang Liqin and said that Ma Lin's forehand frightened him more. In a sense, Wang Liqin's forehand was in part about how consistently powerful it was when you got into a rally. Once Wang Liqin got past serve and serve return, he almost always won in the rally with amazing loops and counterloops.

 

[V-Griper]

From a purely mechanical standpoint the only significant difference is how his left arm is deployed. Everything else is basic drive mechanics i.e. the weight shift/torso rotation/hip extension etc... Most players use the left arm to some degree, FB comes to mind, but ML takes it to higher level. The most obvious effect is that it accelerates his upper torso rotation/twist as he is coming into the ball. It's the conservation of angular momentum exemplified by the spinning ice skater. ML first extends his left arm as he orients to the ball then quickly retracts it which helps speed up his torso rotation prior to ball contact. ML is probably the smallest player on the the squad from a mass standpoint so the question isn't how is his FH so powerful, but how does a player that small hit such a big FH.

On a more subtle note his left arm acts as counter weight which helps him keep his balance as he is lining up his stroke. It also seems like it might be a contact reference point as well, since he seems to hit the ball fairly near where his left hand was when he starts to rotate. He also uses his left arm in interesting ways on his BH, where most other players tend to let it flop around ML tends utilize it in a more deliberate manner. This probably contributes to the aesthetics.

FB holds his left arm in near the same position as ML and does a similar motion on his drive shots.

 

[NextLevel]

From a purely mechanical standpoint the only significant difference is how his left arm is deployed. Everything else is basic drive mechanics i.e. the weight shift/torso rotation/hip extension etc... Most players use the left arm to some degree, FB comes to mind, but ML takes it to higher level. The most obvious effect is that it accelerates his upper torso rotation/twist as he is coming into the ball. It's the conservation of angular momentum exemplified by the spinning ice skater. ML first extends his left arm as he orients to the ball then quickly retracts it which helps speed up his torso rotation prior to ball contact. ML is probably the smallest player on the the squad from a mass standpoint so the question isn't how is his FH so powerful, but how does a player that small hit such a big FH.

On a more subtle note his left arm acts as counter weight which helps him keep his balance as he is lining up his stroke. It also seems like it might be a contact reference point as well, since he seems to hit the ball fairly near where his left hand was when he starts to rotate. He also uses his left arm in interesting ways on his BH, where most other players tend to let it flop around ML tends utilize it in a more deliberate manner. This probably contributes to the aesthetics.

FB holds his left arm in near the same position as ML and does a similar motion on his drive shots.

So the question is this - if this is such a significant innovation, why haven't other players on the CNT been asked to duplicate it?