WTT Singapore Smash 2025 (30 Jan ~ 9 Feb 2025)

[Tyce]

Jeez I wish the internet warrior federation would come up with a widely accepted alternative ranking method instead of just talking trash at whatever the actual system says

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

The rankings are what they are. And they're objectively calculated. There's no clause that says if you're S. Korea's top player you get to stay extra longer. I mean she beat Hirano at the Olympics with a bum shoulder, right? She also beat Kihara at 2024 SC Ljubljana, right? That's pretty good if you ask me. Not sure why you're so hung up on SYB being in the top 10. Maybe she stays there. Maybe she doesn't. It's just a number.

 

[5545]

Can you elaborate on why CIC's performance is much better than SYBs? Is she far more consistent or has she beat "real" higher ranked players that I don't know about?

Likewise you cannot prove your Supposed Top 10 ranking is legit if you can beat players above you but also lose to players below you like Szocs.

So you are arguing that people must consistently beat players below them to prove a ranking even if they can sometimes beat players above them? What a great argument when SYB can do neither. At least Szocs and Hirano can do the latter.

As for CIC, I won’t bother looking it up but I can tell you her overall performance is definitely no worse than SYB. It’s not much better but we can all see who the more consistent player is. She also has beaten Ito and Hayata, both who were Top 10 when she played them and had match point against CXT. Shin has never came close to beating a top CNT, for the record.

 

[5545]

The rankings are what they are. And they're objectively calculated. There's no clause that says if you're S. Korea's top player you get to stay extra longer. I mean she beat Hirano at the Olympics with a bum shoulder, right? She also beat Kihara at 2024 SC Ljubljana, right? That's pretty good if you ask me. Not sure why you're so hung up on SYB being in the top 10. Maybe she stays there. Maybe she doesn't. It's just a number.

Nice of you to mention her one win against Kihara while disregarding what happened all the other times they played.

I don’t have a problem with her being ranked so high if others have not shown more, but they have. Period. I’m “hung up” only because she is just quite overrrated, (something most of you still have not admitted) and I find myself against against overrated atheletes.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Nice of you to mention her one win against Kihara while disregarding what happened all the other times they played.

I don’t have a problem with her being ranked so high if others have not shown more, but they have. Period. I’m “hung up” only because she is just quite overrrated, (something most of you still have not admitted) and I find myself against against overrated atheletes.

Perhaps you're confusing ranking and rating? It's quite possible if ITTF kept around ratings that others *ranked* below SYB would be *rated* higher than her. In any case, the values are dynamic and will change from tournament to tournament. She's no Hina Hayata, but she's the best that S. Korea's got. And I do wish her well.

 

[NextLevel]

Going back to Zen Nihon Semi-Finals to now, Hayata is now 14-0 in her last 14 games, with 3 of the 4 opponents being Odo, Miwa, and Mittelham.

Has she shown this sort of consistency before in the past? Just over a month ago, she was looking a bit compromised and in mediocre form, which makes this current run really hard to believe.

Which past? After her injury? Before her injury, she was the undisputed top plauer outside China.

 

[Catenaccio]

Amazing touch by Gerassimenko

 

[ThePongCommenter]

I'm waiting for it too

It's a shame to me how segmented into cliques the top Taiwan players are, being from a smaller country it could be advantageous to have more of a team training atmosphere like other countries do.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

It's a shame to me how segmented into cliques the top Taiwan players are, being from a smaller country it could be advantageous to have more of a team training atmosphere like other countries do.

True
but then again, other than CNT, there is no real team training atmosphere.
For countries where not too many players go on tour with they own training partners, then you would see them train with each other. But other than that, back home, they don't.

Most countries, the national team starts at the arrival of the events venue, haha

 

[ThePongCommenter]

So you are arguing that people must consistently beat players below them to prove a ranking even if they can sometimes beat players above them? What a great argument when SYB can do neither. At least Szocs and Hirano can do the latter.

As for CIC, I won’t bother looking it up but I can tell you her overall performance is definitely no worse than SYB. It’s not much better but we can all see who the more consistent player is. She also has beaten Ito and Hayata, both who were Top 10 when she played them and had match point against CXT. Shin has never came close to beating a top CNT, for the record.

I'm not arguing anything, I was asking you to elaborate on the far more consistency or beating "real" players that you mentioned.

If you're talking about "coming close to beating a top Chinese" as what determines being top 10 material then you have a very short list of people, none of which have ever come close on a consistent basis. So why would their performance against the non-top Chinese not get considered in whether they deserve top 10 or not?

Does Shin get credit for losing 11-13 in the 7th against Hayata at the last world cup? Or for beating Hirano at the Olympics even though Hirano is more deserving than her? Or for beating Szocs 3-0 at Chongqing champions and 4-1 in 2023 Lima even though Szocs is apparently more deserving than her?

 

[NextLevel]

Hari-boy looks lost again.

 

[5545]

I'm not arguing anything, I was asking you to elaborate on the far more consistency or beating "real" players that you mentioned.

If you're talking about "coming close to beating a top Chinese" as what determines being top 10 material then you have a very short list of people, none of which have ever come close on a consistent basis. So why would their performance against the non-top Chinese not get considered in whether they deserve top 10 or not?

Does Shin get credit for losing 11-13 in the 7th against Hayata at the last world cup? Or for beating Hirano at the Olympics even though Hirano is more deserving than her? Or for beating Szocs 3-0 at Chongqing champions and 4-1 in 2023 Lima even though Szocs is apparently more deserving than her?

Not sure why you're comparing their head to head record and saying "Wow, She beat Hirano and Szocs, so she is more deserving". In that case Surtithka Mukeherjee should also be ranked higher than Shin as she has an 100% win rate against her.
I already gave her credits to her for beating Hirano. I said earlier, she played one good match at one big tournament but it's not enough to cover up everything else.

Here's something else to think about: The fact that the best shin has to offer is barely beating a Hirano and coming close to Hayata once. That's it.

I remeneber when Ito was the 3rd seed at Tokyo and beat the 7th seed JJH in like twenty minutes. Did anyone really care about that? No, because they all knew it was expected and they were right. But no, when Shin is the 4th seed playing the 8th, you guys get so excited for her win and praise her for playing so well despite barely pulling off a 4:3?? Now I wonder why the difference in attitudes........

You guys are all aware of how good she had to play to take down Hirano despite the supposed ease ranking-wise. I mean, what will you all say if Ito won 4:3 against JJH? That she played so well and congrats to her? I don't think so. If that doesn't say something about accurate vs inaccurate ranking I don't know what does. Of course you guys will say "Don't compare SYB to back-then Ito". Well, the seeding difference and difficulty should have been pretty similar, no? 3 and 7 v 4 and 8.

"Coming close to beating a top chinese" was just there because you were asking me about CIC. I only added it as a side-reason. But CIC did indeed beat top ten players in her career while managing to not lose that badly against foreigners, and that was my main point. As for whoever called me out earlier for saying a Olympic semifinalist doesn't deserve a top 10 spot, would you also agree that YMY deserved a top 10 in 2021? You haven't answered that yet.

Can you elaborate on why CIC's performance is much better than SYBs? Is she far more consistent or has she beat "real" higher ranked players that I don't know about?

Likewise you cannot prove your Supposed Top 10 ranking is legit if you can beat players above you but also lose to players below you like Szocs.

You say you are not arguing but look at what you literally wrote at the end "You cannot prove you are a ranking if you can beat players above you but also lose to players below you". So that just means SYB is most "unlegit" for her ranking because she can do neither???? How many times do I have to say that? You happen to avoid a lot of my main arguments, too; a good example is me talking about how SYB has never beaten someone above her while loosing to people below her wayy too often, but you start asking about CIC. Please. Give me another name in the table tennis world today that have an equally poor record in regards to their ranking. I'm genuinely curious if that person exists.

 

[joshmak10]

Why is Xue Fei actually playing good?

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Not sure why you're comparing their head to head record and saying "Wow, She beat Hirano and Szocs, so she is more deserving". In that case Surtithka Mukeherjee should also be ranked higher than Shin as she has an 100% win rate against her.
I already gave her credits to her for beating Hirano. I said earlier, she played one good match at one big tournament but it's not enough to cover up everything else.

Here's something else to think about: The fact that the best shin has to offer is barely beating a Hirano and coming close to Hayata once. That's it.

I remeneber when Ito was the 3rd seed at Tokyo and beat the 7th seed JJH in like twenty minutes. Did anyone really care about that? No, because they all knew it was expected and they were right. But no, when Shin is the 4th seed playing the 8th, you guys get so excited for her win and praise her for playing so well despite barely pulling off a 4:3?? Now I wonder why the difference in attitudes........

You guys are all aware of how good she had to play to take down Hirano despite the supposed ease ranking-wise. I mean, what will you all say if Ito won 4:3 against JJH? That she played so well and congrats to her? I don't think so. If that doesn't say something about accurate vs inaccurate ranking I don't know what does. Of course you guys will say "Don't compare SYB to back-then Ito". Well, the seeding difference and difficulty should have been pretty similar, no? 3 and 7 v 4 and 8.

"Coming close to beating a top chinese" was just there because you were asking me about CIC. I only added it as a side-reason. But CIC did indeed beat top ten players in her career while managing to not lose that badly against foreigners, and that was my main point. As for whoever called me out earlier for saying a Olympic semifinalist doesn't deserve a top 10 spot, would you also agree that YMY deserved a top 10 in 2021? Nobody has adressed that yet so I'll ask that again.



You say you are not arguing but look at what you literally wrote at the end "You cannot prove you are a ranking if you can beat players above you but also lose to players below you". So that just means SYB is most "unlegit" for her ranking because she can do neither???? How many times do I have to say that? You happen to avoid a lot of my main arguments, too; a good example is me talking about how SYB has never beaten someone above her while loosing to people below her wayy too often, but you start asking about CIC. Please. Give me another name in the table tennis world today that have an equally poor record in regards to their ranking. I'm genuinely curious if that person exists.

So you clearly missed the point. I chose those matches because those are the players that you say are definitively better than Shin even though Shin has beaten them on the biggest stages (Hirano) and 2x in the last year and a half (Szocs) so I am asking you to make that make sense but it seems that you can't. And can only bring in some irrelevant comment about her losing to Mukherjee who nobody was talking about.

You keep saying that Shin has this inability to consistently beat players worse than her but at the same time say you can't be bothered to provide this list of all these bad losses you claim that she has. So I will wait for that list since you keep on talking about her poor record. Who do you have besides Mukherjee in recent times?

Szocs has plenty of recent losses to players ranked significantly below her. Shan Xiaona, Batra 2x, Sawettabut, Bergstrom in just the last year alone.

 

[turbozed]

Why is Xue Fei actually playing good?

Looks like his short game and placement while holding the table were better than Harimoto and he forced out a ton of mistakes that snowballed. Harimoto was doing better taking just a couple steps away from the table and giving himself time and room to make his shots. Might be the style difference that explains why guys like Shinozuka and Togami easily handled him with an athletic away from the table style.

 

[NextLevel]

Looks like his short game and placement while holding the table were better than Harimoto and he forced out a ton of mistakes that snowballed. Harimoto was doing better taking just a couple steps away from the table and giving himself time and room to make his shots. Might be the style difference that explains why guys like Shinozuka and Togami easily handled him with an athletic away from the table style.

He was too stubborn for too long. kept jamming himself at the table and kept getting hit in the elbow. If this doesn't convince him that he needs to give himself time to rally against some players, nothing will.

 

[zeio]

XF = X factor

MS R32
XF 3-1 Harimoto (6, 6, -6, 6)
AJH 3-2 Robles (-8, 9, -9, 7, 12)

Teething problems in the foreseeable future for the HKG pairs.

WD R16
Ng Wing Lam/ZCJ 2-3 Sawettabut/Paranang (-4, 9, -5, 10, -13)

MD R16
Shah/Thakkar 3-0 WCT/Yiu Kwan TO (5, 8, 6)

 

[Oliverpool]

He was too stubborn for too long. kept jamming himself at the table and kept getting hit in the elbow. If this doesn't convince him that he needs to give himself time to rally against some players, nothing will.

Yupe. As much as I like Xue Fei as I am penholder myself. Xue Fei is much weaker away from the table especially his forehand which is very spin base. Tomo was able to win many of the rallys away from the table as Xue Fei was just not able to overpower him. But he just decided to stay close to the table playing backhand to backhand and hoping for a forehand switch

 

[JackJohnson]

Qian Tianyi got yellow carded. Didn’t seem like she took too long to get back to the table.

Was that a fair call from the umpire?

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Qian Tianyi got yellow carded. Didn’t seem like she took too long to get back to the table.

Was that a fair call from the umpire?

Didn't even seem like she knew lol