What is talent in table tennis?

[mamedium]

recently had a chat w my teammates but it seemed like no one could come up with any clear answer

curious to hear from the pros on this forum!

 

[TTWiz]

recently had a chat w my teammates but it seemed like no one could come up with any clear answer

curious to hear from the pros on this forum!

To me, talent is the set of innate abilities and physical attributes that each of us is born with.

My 2.5 year old son, for example, can dribble a basketball better and more naturally than some kids many years older than him. He can also kick a football with remarkable ease, speed and accuracy, even when the ball isn’t stationary. And when he plays against a table tennis robot (standing on a chair), he can return almost every ball as long as the speed and spin aren’t too extreme.

I haven’t treated him any differently from my older son, who is 4.5 and couldn’t do the same things at 2.5. In fact, there are still some of these things that my older son can’t do as well, despite being two years older.

To me, that is talent. My younger son has exceptional hand-eye and hand-foot coordination, and generally seems to have an unusually good sense of his body and movement. In that sense, his head start and perhaps even his potential could be huge.

But if the desire, motivation, persistence, willingness to work hard, etc. don’t follow, he probably won’t get very far, regardless of which sport he chooses.

People often say Messi is the definition of talent, while Ronaldo represents hard work. That’s obviously an oversimplification, and at the very highest level you probably need a substantial amount of both.

 

[Füty Imre]

My opinion is that talent can be seen by how fast they improve, also most people have a skill ceiling after a few years of playing if they arent training a lot. Or if there is no clear ceiling I think that there is a certain point technically that after you improve really slowly or stop improving with the same amount of training. In my opinion this also depends on talent.

I think people who have more talent tend to play better than the training amount would suggest. For e.g,: a kid in my club has a technically advanced backhand, I think that he has a way better backhand than the training time would suppose.

 

[Helanren]

I can only speak from my football playing youth but back then it would be quite obvious even to us kids. It's the ones who can coast and still be ahead. Now that doesn't mean you'll succeed. You need that plus hard work and being lucky enough to be noticed and not get injured or burn out on the sport.

And also that specific talent might not cover all aspects of the sport. There were kids great at dribbling who couldn't pass. And the opposite who could read the game way ahead. You also have to be lucky that your specific talent is meta at that time.

 

[Tyce]

Imo talent is having a combination of factors.
Physical coordination is probably the most important thing to have a high base value for.
Mental resilience is part innate, and definitely a big factor in the potential to reach a high level.
Grit is the most underrated part of talent. The ability to keep going, trust the process rather than the outcome, to have the conviction of improving in the long term even if you encounter short term hardship. There's a famous speech by Federer which popped up in my timeline recently where he talks about it in front of a bunch of graduates. Innate ability is just a small part of it.
Take Ovtcharov for example. The main reason that got him to where he is, is the relentless training ethic. Sure, if he didn't have any proper coordination it would have never taken off, but he made the difference by training like a beast.

I have talent. My hand-eye coordination is good, and I can process a lot of information quickly. But I don't train much, and the quality of training is not that good either. I have taken on bad habits and I'm honestly not confident. The result is a low level player with a fair bit of touch and insight but not the ability to act on it.

 

[JustANoob]

Everything above, also, talent can probably be quantified as "If _X_ and _Y_ put in the same amount of training/playing, but _X_ gets better results and consistently beats _Y_ , we can say _X_ has more talent than _Y_"

 

[Dr Evil]

Coordination and quick reflexes. At least as important is fast processing ability, the kind of talent that makes the game slow down for you as you get better (or not speed up so much as the play gets faster).