So back to some serious table tennis business and giving credit to the top boys table tennis school in Taiwan, and one of the top in the world.
I talked about the guy in the center - Li that has is Lin Yunju's practice partner for a year (last year) and has wins against Dima when Dima was at his best form (world number 1).
On the left, is Tai Ming-wei, he beaten Lin Yunju before. Which he is proud to use that for the rest of his career.
On the right is 19 year old Lin Yen-chun, who just lost to WR65 Zhao Zihao earlier today.
On the far right, which I didn't really get timing right to record the multiball of 17 year old, Chang Yu-An, U19 world rank no 7 today.
During the filming of this video, he was only 14 years old and training with the U18 team (nationally ranked no 6 in U18 in Taiwan at 14 years old)
Here is another video:
Li and Lin playing on the 2nd table on the left,
Chang is on the right table wearing black.
On the left table (singles player) is Wang Chen-You, 18 years old today and also made senior national team for Taiwan this year.
He was 2nd place U19 this year, and 1st in 2022. Swapping places with U19 WR no2 Kao Cheng-Jui (seniors WR67), who has 1st in U19 in 2023 and 2nd in U19 in 2022.
Basically, Taiwan has lots of top juniors, but they have a big problem.
They can only "enter" the limit as per what WTT rules allows.
Mean while, there is a country that has a red flag, that always enter way more players than the rules allowed.
So, while Taiwan is following the rules, there are many good players that won't/can't have opportunity to play internationals.
Kao for example is on the list to play, as he finished no 3 seniors in Taiwan this year.
But as 2nd place U19 Wang, is at 11 in seniors, and Chang, 7th place senior, are all outside the "6 spot" per country allowed to enter internationally. Taiwan has 2 spots reserved for Asian championship players, so even if Lin or Chuan don't play, these 2 spots come in before Wang and Chang. So they need to finish top 6 in seniors to be able to be "guaranteed" senior international play time.
Just to compare, some senior WTT events, one country enters 10 to 15 players per gender.....
Hence both Wang and Chang does not play seniors and only play juniors at the moment.
If these players, had the same fairness as some that has VIP treatment, then they would have been able to play 5 to 10 seniors event already and i'm sure both would break into the world top 100 with ease.
There is a lot of depth in Taiwan, and I have told those coaches, I will do my best to make them well known and I do have they blessings.
If only I had more time, I could really just go in and record long training per player and make proper videos per player. But I am no video editing expert, and I don't really have that much spare time. So please just bear with the text intro so long.
It is also due to limitation of opportunities with "6" entries per country, that Tai and Li aren't in the mix today.
Li finish university last year, and Tai is finishing this year. Both Li brothers played 2023 Chinese Jia A league (happening right now).
I chatted with Tai earlier this month and just maybe, he might want to explore the world a bit and I will do everything I can, to help him. He is a very good player with wins against Lin in youth level, but not much opportunities as Asia is gridlocked and Taiwan doesn't have much foreign affairs negotiations rights, and will always be treated as such, despite being a table tennis power house (with its depth unknown to the world).
One of my friends and a former European national/international coach and holds a high management position in a world class TT brand said to me, Taiwan has the top elementary school TT system in the world (he has been to every top country)
Lin Yunju while still in elementary school, trained with the school mentioned in this thread.
www.flashscore.fr
www.flashscore.fr
