What If ?

[guybr50]

Hello Friends!

Ive been thinking lately a lot about the legends from the past, their success, and how the game was rolling back in their days of glory.
and I found the qouestion I have asked myself to be very hard to determined:
What if players like Liu Guolliang, Jan Waldner, Kong Linghui or others legendery players from the past were start playing 30 years later than the point their career was originally started?

The game has defenetly changed! we all can agree on that one.
So do you think those legend could still hold up their game (each one with his own special abillities and advantages) and adapt the change in the rules, the change of the rubbers (tension, hardness, explosivness, speed and spin) and all of the other chnges that were made in the past 10 years? plastic balls, 11 points per set- we can keep counting them all day.

In my opinion, players like Waldner, which had back in the days THE BEST touch ever to be displayed by a table tennis player (once again, in my opinion), players like him wouldnt be able to perform the same touch they did back there, in nowadays: the game is way more spinny today, way more tense and definetly more explosive. so I dont think they could produced the same faboulous shots that made them so famous back then - In our time.

But it is definetly possible they could adapted and developed different and even better skills than they have ever had!
I found this debate to be very interesting.

As usual, have a great discussion! really looking forward to hear your thoughts on that one.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Every so often a thread with a subject like this appears. It is a great question. Not too hard to find an answer for a great like Waldner. In 2004, he got to the final 4 in the Olympics LONG AFTER HIS PRIME.

In 2009 and again in 2011 he played Ma Long and gave him an extremely tough time despite his bad back and lack of training.

The fact is that the reason Waldner retired is that he has a bad back. His back keeps him from doing the kind of training he would need to in order to play at top level and his back makes it so that he can't really play a full tournament.

Jorgen Persson played and was in the top 50 until a few years ago.

However, I think the safest thing to say is that the guys who were among best of their times WERE AMONG THE BEST OF THEIR TIMES. And that is an achievement not to take lightly.

People often ask questions in sports like: "What would happen if Muhamed Ali fought Joe Lewis and they were both in their prime?"

We will never know but great athletes seem to rise above the competition that is around them. And in spite of changes in the table tennis the skill set is not that different.

In Waldner's famous matches with Ma Long, he was fat, out of shape and could barely move and yet, tactically, he broke down Ma Long's game and made him look awkward. He did that while barely moving.

Waldner is about to turn 50 in just a few weeks. I would be willing to bet that, without the bad back, he could still get into the top 30.


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