Retriever wrote:
Hi Lorre,
That last sentence tripped my sarcasm meter. At least I think that's what it was.
That last sentence tripped my sarcasm meter. At least I think that's what it was.
Your sarcasm meter is working properly.
It was sarcasm. They change the balls to plastic, raise their diameter and the result is: the Chinese are equally or even more dominant than before. Hearing the (rumoured) hired crowd they wanted to show it too.mynamenotbob wrote:
Higher nets are already in the works.
Yes and for once: this might help the game.
TableTennisDoc wrote:
I think we should take it for what it is....table tennis at its excellence. People will say I wish I saw tiger woods play. They've put forth wang hao and ma Lin who are now gone.
If one wants to succeed at something all you need do is do something your competition is unwilling to do. Wang hao started playing when he was five. Culled from thousands of players. Trained as the ultimate table tennis machine along with hundreds of other machines. Think train eat sleep table tennis 24 he a day. Then your career is over at 30. Condemned to China's coaching gulag.
China can show you what they do...but would you do it? Not me. I wouldn't do what tiger woods did.
If one wants to succeed at something all you need do is do something your competition is unwilling to do. Wang hao started playing when he was five. Culled from thousands of players. Trained as the ultimate table tennis machine along with hundreds of other machines. Think train eat sleep table tennis 24 he a day. Then your career is over at 30. Condemned to China's coaching gulag.
China can show you what they do...but would you do it? Not me. I wouldn't do what tiger woods did.
I don't know. In the past I was thinking the same as you. If you want to be better than the Chinese, then you have to live TT more they are. But I don't think that's possible given the modern capitalist society we live in. Sports people here still have a life outside their sports: a healthy evolution if you ask me. I don't think that's the case in (still mostly) communist China. I think the standard of China will become ours, once capitalism will conquer China.
The point it is, table tennis is a peanuts sport outside China. A top Chinese player can make a comfortable living playing in the pro leagues. So can a top European player, there's the Bundesliga. This allows them to live, eat and breathe table tennis, much like Serena Williams lives, eats and breathes tennis. But in the US and in most places in the world? Forget it.