What table tennis players are mentally strong and what table tennis players are very weak mentally

[Mionixxd]

Hi, this is very off topic but I am writing a school assignment and talking about how your mentality can affect your performance and career in sports. Because I am a table tennis player I am going to use table tennis players as examples. What table tennis players are very strong mentally and can handle pressure moments and what players are very bad mentally, I had a few in mind that are very mentally weak for example möregårdh and lind, and i would also like to add a how small choices can affect your career, I wanted to mention liang jingkun because he got banned på cttf because he made a very weird celebration against his teammate. So if you know some players that are very strong mentally please let me know and thank you in advance.

 

[kindof99]

strong: Zjk
weak:LGY

 

[Mionixxd]

strong: Zjk
weak:LGY

How is zhang jike strong mentally?

 

[Fnub]

Strong: Ma Long
Weak: me😁

 

[Mionixxd]

Strong: Ma Long
Weak: me😁

I had ma long in mind but in recent times he is showing more emotions so i am not sure.

 

[H3R0]

Hi, this is very off topic but I am writing a school assignment and talking about how your mentality can affect your performance and career in sports. Because I am a table tennis player I am going to use table tennis players as examples. What table tennis players are very strong mentally and can handle pressure moments and what players are very bad mentally, I had a few in mind that are very mentally weak for example möregårdh and lind, and i would also like to add a how small choices can affect your career, I wanted to mention liang jingkun because he got banned på cttf because he made a very weird celebration against his teammate. So if you know some players that are very strong mentally please let me know and thank you in advance.

You can add Timo Boll and Chuang Chih-yuan, both of which are still playing professionally at the age of 43. I hope there is no need to explain how difficult it is to play against younger players.
There are definitely older players still playing professionally, but definitely not at top 20 level. Huge respect for both of them.
As strong point in mentality, you can add the last victory of Timo Boll against Harimoto in Finals.

 

[Emin]

FZD is mentally the strongest, along side maybe Ma Long and Ovtcharov.
The amount of times Ive seen FZD be down Match points and still fight and take strong and possible risky shots is astonishing.
Recently He did it against Alexis in Busan. Last year I remember against LYJ.
In 2017 WTT final against ML.
Those just came to my mind.
FZD never really backs down or plays it safe.

ML and Ovtcharov are really Great at this as well.


Outside of TT there is Djokovic, probably the mentally strongest Athlete in the World.

 

[kindof99]

ML used to be deemed with soft mind by LGL before. Timo Boll is probably the one that have had the most amazing comebacks.

LJK have had some nice comebacks as well. I feel players that play with strong spin games are probably mental tougher as they can usually comeback more often at the end.

 

[Louisgenius]

Strong: FZD
Weak: Chen WeiXing 😂😂😂

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

This is a complex question to answer. Wang Hao was mentally very strong until he wasn't. He came in second in World Table Tennis Championships several times. He did win in 2009 but he came in second many times.

Ma Lin was also mentally strong for most of his career but he also never won a WTTC gold title.

Zhang Jike through 2013 was mentally strong in all the biggest tournaments. But not so much in regular tournaments. There are many times where you could see him give up and just quit in the middle of a match. There were a few times where, in the middle of the match he just stopped and forfeited the match claiming an injury. Maybe there was an injury or not. But I have not seen too many players who were at that level, who, in the middle of a match, just stopped and walked off.

Ma Long, early in his career was said to not be mentally strong. He lost to Wang Hao in the semifinals in 2009, 2011 and 2013 all of which were years many people thought he was the best player in the world. But in those semifinal matches vs Wang Hao, it looked like his nerves caused him to fall apart. Was it? I don't know. Was it Wang Hao doing Jedi Mind Tricks? I don't know. But after 2014, he seemed mentally stronger than anyone. And maybe overcoming nerves like that in your early career and, with experience ending up with a very strong mental game is something that having a strong mental game is about.

It can be said that Wang Liqin had a strong mental game early in his career and well into his later career. But it is interesting that, even while winning 3 WTTCs, he never got Olympic Gold in singles.

So....I don't really know if there is an answer to your question. Perhaps, when a player is on, and nobody seems to be able to challenge him, the player shows mental strength and when the player is not on his game, the opposite and that most top players phase into and out of that mental state where it is very hard to beat that player.

In the 2014 World Cup Zhang Jike vs Ma Long, the match went to deuce in the 7th game. To me both players showed mental strength even though only one player can win.

 

[Jan_]

Strong, Vladimir Samsonov
Weak, Chen Weixing

Man, Chen was a damn mess every time he played, he got very angry, punching himself, pulling at his shorts, shouting, throwing rackets, well... almost...

 

[NextLevel]

This is a very dangerous topic and I find it unfortunate that world class players performing at the limits of their physical ability can be deemed mentally weak by outsiders without any context into the full picture. We are all guilty of it, I get it, but we should be careful and more aware of such narratives when pushed to reflect on them.

Let us start with some definitions - what is the definition of mental weakness and mental strength? If we do define this, we might find that some players we consider mentally weak are not as weak as we think they are and some who are mentally strong are not as strong as we think they are. Everything has context. But definitions will help a lot.

As much as it is fashionable go call Lin Gaoyuan mentally weak, you don't get to that level of TT play by being mentally weak and not having gone through many trials. It is the extreme pressures of performing for China at that level that have given birth to the mentally weak narrative. But the reality is that he is consistently one of the strongest mental players in the world and his career trajectory as a persistently hard worker clearly shows this!

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Man, Chen was a damn mess every time he played, he got very angry, punching himself, pulling at his shorts, shouting, throwing rackets, well... almost...

I am not condoning this and I don't know if this was the case for Chen Weixing, but I have seen players use antics like that to mess with the mental focus of the opponent. After alarming and disarming behavior like that, some players have a harder time concentrating and staying focused.

 

[pong99]

mentally weak - any players who complain and make excuses for losing because the other players used LP, bad lightning, humidity, noisy hall, tournament ball wasn't nittaku, etc.

 

[NextLevel]

mentally weak - any players who complain and make excuses for losing because the other players used LP, bad lightning, humidity, noisy hall, tournament ball wasn't nittaku, etc.

But some players do this to keep their self image untouched by the losses, which may be their mental strength. Context matters, it comes back to whether the player is doing anything to play better when things are wrong, but what they say and what they do can be completely different.

 

[Jan_]

I am not condoning this and I don't know if this was the case for Chen Weixing, but I have seen players use antics like that to mess with the mental focus of the opponent. After alarming and disarming behavior like that, some players have a harder time concentrating and staying focused.

True, but after he just played worse. Kreanga barely lost points after Chen got booed.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

True, but after he just played worse. Kreanga barely lost points after Chen got booed.

As I said, my comment was not actually about CW. It was about alarming behavior and, perhaps, what some people will do to try and win.

 

[Jan_]

As I said, my comment was not actually about CW. It was about alarming behavior and, perhaps, what some people will do to try and win.

True, unless it's at the end of matches, throwing rackets and whatnot, for example Filus just made an ass of himself some time ago when he made an assassination attempt on a cameraman.

 

[PaddyPolar]

Maybe truls as a weak one, as he plays quite weakly in wtt tournements but strong in other ones, from what ive seen

 

[Metaxa]

True, unless it's at the end of matches, throwing rackets and whatnot, for example Filus just made an ass of himself some time ago when he made an assassination attempt on a cameraman.

And never received a sanction for it.