World #90 Iba Diaw loses to Unranked Female Opponent, Calls Cheating!

[AndySmith]

One of the things I find most beautiful about playing TT is the multi-generational aspect. There's no shame losing to a 60+ year old veteran of the sport - some players have class that outweighs their physical issues. And this is a real joy that puts TT apart from many sports where it's just not sensible (or even safe) to play competitively at older ages. It's a long term pastime that has massive health and wellbeing benefits for older players.

However, that needs to be balanced against the high barrier of entry for what is a technical, demanding sport with low financial rewards. Many juniors get put off and disheartened when they first encounter radically different equipment. There's a lot that can be said about this, easy to blame players, coaches, parents etc. But the end result is - TT has to compete for attention with a vast array of competing activities and families will make decisions based on the experiences their children have.

I think equipment legality has to be balanced to meet the requirements of both paragraphs above and the frictionless ban walks a tricky line to do that. Tournaments should regulate and test where needed, and players should do their best to avoid breaking the rules.

 

[Arkady]

Believe it or not, ITTF actually agrees with you 200% but they can neither admit it openly nor can they ban pips,
They would love to, Lot more than you & majority of players who play. But there is a also reason why they have not done so.

What's there not to believe? It's absolutely understandable:

What promotes the sport better? What is more stunning to a little kid that watches table tennis for the first time? Athletes that play in lighting fast speeds, with explosive forehands, ripping backhands exchanging 20 balls in each rally or 70 year old veteran grandpas with LP's and antispin, that push and chop in slow motion and lose the ball after 3 exchanges?

Let's face as it is: Pimples and antispins are a disgrace to the sport and should be banned. Not a very popular opinion, but true nonetheless.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

What's there not to believe? It's absolutely understandable:

What promotes the sport better? What is more stunning to a little kid that watches table tennis for the first time? Athletes that play in lighting fast speeds, with explosive forehands, ripping backhands exchanging 20 balls in each rally or 70 year old veteran grandpas with LP's and antispin, that push and chop in slow motion and lose the ball after 3 exchanges?

Let's face as it is: Pimples and antispins are a disgrace to the sport and should be banned. Not a very popular opinion, but true nonetheless.

I personally don't enjoy playing against non inverted rubbers because it requires more brain usage.
but the uses of pimples and antispin is an art, it is a skill set. For you to think only veterans use them is probably a bigger problem.

I'm not sure if you seen high level pros using them, but to top spin or attack with short pips and then anti and on the FH should rather get some applause and not a disgrace and/or banning.

So tell me, is this stroke a disgrace? or because it is a 14 year old offensive player using SP and anti so it is okay?
Peng Yu-Han has a lot of fans who mimic her style of play and I think that is pretty healthy for the sport.

Taiwan has a huge market for kids, with many of the kids themselves using pimples or antis
So to blame these type of rubbers for other countries lack of success in "kids" TT, I think is just excuses.
Its really easy to learn to deal with it and of course the stronger player would prevail.
Getting a market for kids TT is really - just getting into schools as a school sport.

 

[Peter93]

What's there not to believe? It's absolutely understandable:

What promotes the sport better? What is more stunning to a little kid that watches table tennis for the first time? Athletes that play in lighting fast speeds, with explosive forehands, ripping backhands exchanging 20 balls in each rally or 70 year old veteran grandpas with LP's and antispin, that push and chop in slow motion and lose the ball after 3 exchanges?

Let's face as it is: Pimples and antispins are a disgrace to the sport and should be banned. Not a very popular opinion, but true nonetheless.

I also think pips should be banned outright because it doesn't promote an athletic style of play befitting a proper sport.

But there are a lot of people who defend them, saying that it promotes variety....

It's okay. You guys can admit you spend 100s of $$$ on equipment and still don't know how to play against pips players.

 

[piligrim]

What's there not to believe? It's absolutely understandable:

What promotes the sport better? What is more stunning to a little kid that watches table tennis for the first time? Athletes that play in lighting fast speeds, with explosive forehands, ripping backhands exchanging 20 balls in each rally or 70 year old veteran grandpas with LP's and antispin, that push and chop in slow motion and lose the ball after 3 exchanges?

Let's face as it is: Pimples and antispins are a disgrace to the sport and should be banned. Not a very popular opinion, but true nonetheless.

If instead 70 year old veteran grandpas you put JSH?

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

If instead 70 year old veteran grandpas you put JSH?

how I miss watching JSH play

That is pure art!

 

[blahness]

It's okay. You guys can admit you spend 100s of $$$ on equipment and still don't know how to play against pips players.

I actually do much better against pips than I do against double inverted players who can just overwhelm me with spin/speed. But I still think pips which allows for imbalanced athletic requirements should be outright banned from the sport simply because we want table tennis to be more athletic rather than going in the pickleball direction. The plastic ball, aspect ratio limit, frictionless ban, ban of hidden serves all were steps in the right direction. ITTF just needs to go one step even further.

 

[Arkady]

It's okay. You guys can admit you spend 100s of $$$ on equipment and still don't know how to play against pips players.

Ok lets assume for arguments sake, that I can't play against pips and that's why I'm whining....

But how do you explain that an active GNT player who has even played against Ma Long, almost lost to a para-athlete playing with pips?

Just to get an idea what I' talking about, this guy that is playing Ma Long in this video

almost lost 3-0 to the para-athlete of this video

Just in case that you might think that I'm bullshitting, take a look to the actual sheet of the game.
It is the 3rd game

http://files.ping-pong.gr/FA23-24/V3V-AKT.jpg

Maybe he doesn't know how to play against pips as well.... (sic) although he had Papageorgiou as co-player for many years, who is a short pip player and has beaten Wladner many years before...

 

[Peter93]

I actually do much better against pips than I do against double inverted players who can just overwhelm me with spin/speed. But I still think pips which allows for imbalanced athletic requirements should be outright banned from the sport simply because we want table tennis to be more athletic rather than going in the pickleball direction. The plastic ball, aspect ratio limit, frictionless ban, ban of hidden serves all were steps in the right direction. ITTF just needs to go one step even further.

You're telling me you don't table tennis to go in the direction of *checks notes* the fastest growing sport in the United States?

 

[NextLevel]

My opinion for what its worth is that if someone wants an athletic endeavor, they should go play tennis. Or even hardbat. If you are playing modern table tennis, you are not playing it for athleticism per se, you are playing it because you enjoy the spin dimension. And pips introduce a wrinkle to the spin dimension that is in line with the history of the game and in line with mastering the spin dimension. Again, if you are really about athleticism, using equipment that mostly plays the stroke for you, which many modern rubbers do, is hardly about athleticism.

 

[NextLevel]

You're telling me you don't table tennis to go in the direction of *checks notes* the fastest growing sport in the United States?

In reality, pickleball is actually more athletic than table tennis, other than with respect to certain aspects of speed. The spin dimension that makes table tennis interesting is what really differentiates it from pickleball and that is hardly athletic in nature.

 

[blahness]

You're telling me you don't table tennis to go in the direction of *checks notes* the fastest growing sport in the United States?

Might as well promote hardbat if we're going in the pickleball direction lol.... no spin, no athleticism, no power....

Top level TT with double inverted already has the max cool factor (Especially if WTT fixes the stupid af side view crap angle)

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Might as well promote hardbat if we're going in the pickleball direction lol.... no spin, no athleticism, no power....

Top level TT with double inverted already has the max cool factor (Especially if WTT fixes the stupid af side view crap angle)

hardbat no athleticism ??? That's because you've been only watching the hobby players so far...

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

hardbat no athleticism ??? That's because you've been only watching the hobby players so far...

blahness, your undermining of hardbats is really insulting to all those hardbat pros out there.
Don't you see your view point is the same as those that see table tennis as only garage pong and calling it a game and not a sport?

Table tennis has a lot to learn from pickleball.
For far too long, table tennis is using the "most played sport in the world" (or very high viewership) banner to think things are excellent.
But you take out 1 country, then TT falls off the radar
and TT is falling off in many "traditional countries" too.
and this has nothing to do with pips. The market size of pips or anti is just far too little to be even be able to take it on as a light excuse.

And if you want to talk about the promotion of the sport - what have you done?

 

[blahness]

hardbat no athleticism ??? That's because you've been only watching the hobby players so far...

Still a far cry from Lin Yun Ju vs Wang Chuqin lol... there's a reason why TT is an Olympic sport and hardbat ain't...

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Ok lets assume for arguments sake, that I can't play against pips and that's why I'm whining....

But how do you explain that an active GNT player who has even played against Ma Long, almost lost to a para-athlete playing with pips?

Dima when WR no 1 lost to a 18 year old Taiwanese kid.
so, how can Dima loose? Dima was beating the Chinese but loose to an unranked kid?
Did the kid have funny equipment?

Just to get an idea what I' talking about, this guy that is playing Ma Long in this video

almost lost 3-0 to the para-athlete of this video

Just in case that you might think that I'm bullshitting, take a look to the actual sheet of the game.
It is the 3rd game

Both in South Africa and in Taiwan, I previously had the opportunity to work with para-atheletes. Some that are way better than me, and some not.
I personally find it very difficult to play against them - even those that are way better than me.
That is just part of life and there are many factors other than just equipment for the reason why I would loose to them.
To blame things on equipment, really sounds like those spoiled kid that would always want to find an external excuse and never an internal one.

Maybe he doesn't know how to play against pips as well.... (sic) although he had Papageorgiou as co-player for many years, who is a short pip player and has beaten Wladner many years before...

Know how to play against one doesn't mean you can play against all
again, your example is really too narrow minded.

Players have ups and downs, short pips have speed and then other kinds have spins (or really lack of). There is so much technical factor one can talk about with short pips and leading to the way the ball travels and how easy (or not) it is to use, and how easy (or not) to return. If you can't see behind that and only see it as 1 kind, then that is why you would struggle when playing against short pips.

There are many things that are part of the game - so just acknolwedge and accept.
Then they are those jokes that are also part of the game - acknolwedge and accept (ie those umpires who see edge as sides and vice versus)

Table tennis complextivity is in its spin and usage/reading of the spin.
If table tennis is only 1 dimensional and only have topspin, then I would say, it would really be boring.
They need have way more choppers. With ITTF rule change, choppers is on a huge decline and that isn't healthy for the sport

With chop blocker styles - womens are getting a lot more coming out.
Chance of success is very low (how many in 100 are there?), it is such a minority and here you are moaning of minorities?

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Make hardbat an Olympic discipline and the gold medalist thighs will be as big as Ma Long or Fan Zhendong

 

[NextLevel]

Make hardbat an Olympic discipline and the gold medalist thighs will be as big as Ma Long or Fan Zhendong

It's ignorance of the history of the sport that leads someone to think that what Wang Chuqin and Ma Long are doing is inherently more athletic than high level hardbat. Modern TT taxes some things more than hardbat does, but hard bat usually leads to far longer and taxing rallies and that by itself should end the discussion. The equipment isn't generating a lot of the spin for you.

 

[NextLevel]

Dima when WR no 1 lost to a 18 year old Taiwanese kid.
so, how can Dima loose? Dima was beating the Chinese but loose to an unranked kid?
Did the kid have funny equipment?


Both in South Africa and in Taiwan, I previously had the opportunity to work with para-atheletes. Some that are way better than me, and some not.
I personally find it very difficult to play against them - even those that are way better than me.
That is just part of life and there are many factors other than just equipment for the reason why I would loose to them.
To blame things on equipment, really sounds like those spoiled kid that would always want to find an external excuse and never an internal one.



Know how to play against one doesn't mean you can play against all
again, your example is really too narrow minded.

Players have ups and downs, short pips have speed and then other kinds have spins (or really lack of). There is so much technical factor one can talk about with short pips and leading to the way the ball travels and how easy (or not) it is to use, and how easy (or not) to return. If you can't see behind that and only see it as 1 kind, then that is why you would struggle when playing against short pips.

There are many things that are part of the game - so just acknolwedge and accept.
Then they are those jokes that are also part of the game - acknolwedge and accept (ie those umpires who see edge as sides and vice versus)

Table tennis complextivity is in its spin and usage/reading of the spin.
If table tennis is only 1 dimensional and only have topspin, then I would say, it would really be boring.
They need have way more choppers. With ITTF rule change, choppers is on a huge decline and that isn't healthy for the sport

With chop blocker styles - womens are getting a lot more coming out.
Chance of success is very low (how many in 100 are there?), it is such a minority and here you are moaning of minorities?

To support your point, there are lots of matches in TT where a player gets injured and can no longer move and then his blocking game throws of his opponent more than the previous rally game. We have the famous Ding Ning incident vs LSW, we have Samsonov vs Dima at the Olympics, and I remember Sharath managing to salvage a bad injury vs Gauzy. Awkward games/situations are not purey about ability.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

To support your point, there are lots of matches in TT where a player gets injured and can no longer move and then his blocking game throws of his opponent more than the previous rally game. We have the famous Ding Ning incident vs LSW, we have Samsonov vs Dima at the Olympics, and I remember Sharath managing to salvage a bad injury vs Gauzy. Awkward games/situations are not purey about ability.

and talk about blocking, few players comes to mind.

that is why I say, I love those "art". It is beyond skills.