United States Smash 2025, Las Vegas, 7/3-13

[pongfugrasshopper]

 

[quanghuysk]

Bye Sasha. Look tired, not motivated at all, didn't even want to take a TO

 

[dingyibvs]

I like that the visibility is being enforced throughout the toss it seems in this system... Ma Long would not have survived in this TTR system lol...

He did win the World Cup finals with his BH serve lol.

 

[zeio]

MS R16
F. Lebrun (6) 3-2 Duda (11) (2, 9, -10, -6, 8)
G5 02 TO for Lebrun, 12, 14, 24, 25, 35, 55, 56, 106, 108, 118

 

[NextLevel]

View attachment 36956

Sun Yingsha has looked wrong throughout this event. And after Wang Manyu bowed out, there was really no pressure to perform anymore, let someone else take the stress of defending China lol.

 

[job59]

I'm a bit tired to read all the thread.
Is there any info out, why we cannot watch (live) streams of the main draw matches, as we could during qualification?

 

[turbozed]

While I do accept that it can have some effect, the "quiet eye" phenomenon isn't exactly the case here though and ties in with another point that I've made in the past.

For one, the "quiet eye" applies to hand-eye coordination, which would apply to the server at the point of contact, and the receiver only a bit later when he's about to making contact. The timing is close enough though that there can be some minor effects, specifically affecting your ability to judge the service based on the ball itself. However, this leads to the second point.

The second point is that services are primarily judged based on the server's racket (direction of brush, contact point, contact speed, etc.) and less based on the ball. I've made the point before that one of the reasons hook serves are more difficult to read is because the racket is oftentimes behind the body until right before contact. Top players manage to use the same trick to hide their pendulum service swings as well by keeping their body bent and arm raised (e.g. WCQ and to a lesser extent ML). This IMO is where the "quiet eye" phenomenon really matters.

@Tony's Table Tennis I wonder if the pros you're referring to is actually more affected by the hidden racket path rather than the hidden ball path when they're playing against players who would obscure the ball path. After all, the racket movement is more important for judging a service and it has far more variability than the ball path. What players do to obscure the ball path, e.g. turning their body and bending down with their head close to net height can also obscure the racket for longer than the ball.

What you conjecture about how the quiet eye works seems like a reasonable interpretation. But sounding feasible and being borne out by research aren't the same thing. There are studies where specifically longer gaze time at the ball is related to performance. This is from tennis but here's one study:

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pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Abstract​

The authors studied gaze behaviors in high- and intermediate-skill tennis players while they performed tennis serve returns. Participants returned 40 serves in 4 serve locations while wearing a mobile eye tracker. The ball's flight path was deconstructed into 3 distinct locations (i.e., ball before bouncing on surface, the bounce area, and ball after bouncing on surface), and gaze behaviors along with quiet-eye (QE) onset and durations were recorded. Results revealed that (a) high-skill players exhibited better return shots than their lower skill counterparts, (b) high-skill players and high-score shots were characterized by longer fixation durations on the ball at prebounce, and (c) longer QE durations were observed for high-skill players and high-score shots. Findings provide valuable insight into the relationship between gaze behaviors, QE, and performance in fast-pace interceptive sports.

At least in one sport, staring at the ball longer improves performance until it bounces on your side of the court. This is tennis where there is less spin and the ball isn't hidden. If we were human computers that just needed snapshots of contact point to make quality receives, then quiet eye in this situation is somewhat irrelevant. But the results demonstrate that's not the case. That's kinda the whole point of quiet eye. It defies "common sense" assumptions about the specific sport. Stuff like "well I already know what the ball is going to do I've been a pro for 10 years" is proving to be no substitute for actually focusing on the ball.

If I would have to design a study to apply this to table tennis, I'd test how receiveing performance changes when the ball is always visible prior to contact point, versus very obscured (maybe over 50% of the way down) and only slightly obscured. Your conjecture is that all three would be the same and there is zero effect as long as contact point is visible. My guess is that the longer the ball is hidden, the more break there is in whatever benefits the quiet eye phenomenon is conferring, and more disruption to judgment.

Now is it significant impairment or minor impairment? I don't know. Even if it was only minor impairment, the fact would remain that players have been systematically breaking the rules by hiding the ball more to gain an advantage. If the rules say that only contact point should be visible then we can say that aspect of the game is part of table tennis. But the rules say ball must be visible at all times. So ball hiding is currently not a "skill" of table tennis and the rules already imply that there is an disadvantage to the server for partial hiding. So the burden is on those who believe it doesn't matter to prove that it doesn't cause any impairment.

 

[zeio]

XD SF
LYJ/CIC 2-3 LJH/SYB (2) (8, 7, -9, -12, -7)
LJH stays true to his word after the XD bronze at Paris 2024, that fortunately he could keep playing XD with SYB. He really doesn't care about MS anymore. LOL

巴黎奧運丨南韓乒乓球選手林鐘勳摘銅牌獲免兵役　原計劃8月19日入伍
https://www.orangenews.hk/international/1233876/巴黎奧運丨南韓乒乓球選手林鐘勳摘銅牌獲免兵役-原計劃8月19日入伍.shtml

在賽後採訪中，林鐘勳表示：「很感恩自己在沒有受傷的情況下很好地完成了比賽。想對裕斌說聲辛苦了。」

林鐘勳原計劃在今年8月19日履行其兵役義務，但此次獲得銅牌後，根據南韓相關規定，他將獲得免除兵役的特別待遇。

對此，林鐘勳表示：「非常感恩」、「說實話，在這次比賽前，說沒想過軍隊的事，那是說謊。我只是接受了這件事，抱着和裕斌一起挑戰的心態去控制了情緒，這對我幫助很大」、「雖然說這是一場比賽，但也不是沒有沉重感和負擔感。但幸運的是，以後還能繼續跟裕斌一起打雙打。」

 

[zeio]

WS R16
CIC 0-3 KM (-10, -6, -6)
G1 92, 98 TO for CIC, 910, 1010, 1012
Poor CIC, losing both XD and WS in successive matches. Only WD left. You can't have it all in WTT era.

 

[zeio]

Hmm, the one thing nice about US Smash 2025 is the announcers and commentators.

 

[zeio]

Assistant professor ZYL: Before this match, I counted the number of matches I've played since my return. It was my 38th match. Time flies. I never imagined I could present myself bravely in WTT events, therefore, this match turned out beyond my imagination. In the beginning, it could be seen that I didn't have a quick start, but I told myself before the match that I had to persevere no matter how passive I might find myself to be. Therefore, in G1 and G2, there were times when I was trailing, and exactly because I persisted, I turned the tables half way in both games...

WYD: I prove that US Smash is not a major competition. [No, she didn't say it.]

【インタビュー】元世界1位・朱雨玲「絶対に諦めない」癌からの復帰後 約半年で世界2位を撃破｜USスマッシュ2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-3USvfALxE

【インタビュー】王芸迪・蒯曼「伊藤選手と早田選手は本当に強い」逆転勝利でベスト4へ みまひなペアとのフルゲームの激戦制す
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k9r-fePBqU

 

[TampaBayTableTennis]

Mima Ito Masterclass in Destruction vs Han Ying

 

[Janard]

Can we see an Ito vs ZYL semi-finals please.

 

[NextLevel]

Mima Ito Masterclass in Destruction vs Han Ying

She played Han Ying for the first time at the German Open in 2014/2015 that Mima won in diapers. Han Ying won the first 3 games to go up 3-0, then Mima came back to win 4-3. She has never lost to Han Ying since, it is the most boring matchup in all of table tennis. Even matchups like Ma Long vs Dima or Ma Long vs Mizutani or FZD vs Boll pretend to be intriguing.

PS: I was wrong, she lost to Han Ying 2-4 in 2016 in a match that somehow escaped me. But if you watch the matches you will remember it more like me...

 

[zeio]

MS R16
A. Lebrun (10) 2-3 Tanaka (-10, 5, 7, -5, -9)
G1 107, 1012

 

[NextLevel]

Sora spoke!

 

[fore.n.back]

Tanaka does it again, pls give this dude a sponsor ffs

 

[JackJohnson]

French coach clapping at the end of the game lol.

 

[TampaBayTableTennis]

serve fault controversy put a damper on an otherwise awesome match, good win for Tanaka. came right down to it. overall good behavior from Lebrun given the situation (faulted two serves in a row 5-5 in game 5, no TTR available).

 

[NextLevel]

serve fault controversy put a damper on an otherwise awesome match, good win for Tanaka. came right down to it. overall good behavior from Lebrun given the situation (faulted two serves in a row 5-5 in game 5, no TTR available).

Well, I have always found Lebrun's tosses dubious, but like you said, in the absence of TTR, those calls can be brutal.