OOAK Table Tennis Forum

'm finding this more and more now that my club is only using the Nittaku JPN ball. Its heavier and spins less than the cell ball or other poly balls. Attackers are having a field day with it and defending successfully is harder and harder. I played a guy last night whose favorite game was always fishing and lobbing. I've never lost to him in that game. But he was injured and couldn't run around. So he'd been practising attacking. He turned me from attacker against him normally to defending every shot and he beat me for the first time ever. And I didn't enjoy the game with him as I usually would - not so much cos I lost - but because he's one of the few that I loved attacking Go figure, guy gets injured and finds a way to beat me through it

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You might go for classical defense when facing this guy next time.

Update...defenders among the best 149 ranked.

2016/8 list

14 JOO Saehyuk
25 GIONIS Panagiotis
39 MURAMATSU Yuto
45 CHEN Weixing
51 WANG Yang
56 FILUS Ruwen
57 SHIONO Masato
84 PATTANTYUS Adam


2017/8 list

22 GIONIS Panagiotis
23 FILUS Ruwen
30 MURAMATSU Yuto
66 WANG Yang
69 CHEN Weixing
117 WANG Xi ^^
128 KANG Dongsoo (added)

Out from the previous years list are JOO, SHIONO and PATTANTYUS.

GIONIS, FILUS and MURAMATSU have got their rankings up quite bit.

Joo, Shiono and Pattantyus retired?

But only two out of six are young guns (Wang Yang and Muramatsu). They're not doing fine IMO. Of course defense is an art learned by experience. Still Joo was already a force to be reckoned with at the age of 23.

Weixing is still playing? How old is he now? 55? 60?

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

There is also Kang Dongsoo, currently number 126. He is only 23, but he is not exactly a regular player in international events.

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"It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done" - Terry Pratchett

You are all forgetting Ma Te - who's only 23. If we take Joo out of the equation Ma might as well be the best in the world at the moment.
A couple of thoughts to prove my point:
1) The best defender in CNT - he doesn't play internationally thus no WR
2) He just beat Yan An a few days ago. Yan was a WR #14 back in May. For comparison, Yan played Filus back in January and he pretty much wiped the floor with Filus.

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Attackers: "All pips players are cheaters who can't loop, move, or read spin"
Me: I beg your pardon?

Allright, I added KANG Dongsoo on the list, number 126. Yeah, Ma Te is great, hope he makes to the international competition.

Not sure how the ITTF list works and how players are taken off the list...

Try the same exercise with the women. Quite a few on the list, actually.

Choppers have never been numerous in the top ranks, at least, not after 1960 they haven't... And they aren't all that numerous in the lower ranks either. It's the equipment - maybe if they outlaw everything other than hardbat...

Iskandar

You might be joking about it, but there's a core of truth in that statement. While attacking material is constantly evolving (more spin, more speed), defensive equipment is stagnating and is restricted by the ITTF. Do you remember something groundbreaking after DTecs?

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

I think it's more that the equipment post-1952 just allows for very powerful attacks - defending against such attacks is a great deal more difficult than it was before 1952 (when sponge came to prominence). Even the 1959 change in rules left in place very powerful attacking equipment, even if they did ban the 1/2 inch thick sponge. Note that the best defenders today are well known for what? Their ability to attack.

By the way, why was DTecs "groundbreaking"? (I honestly don't know, I was "away" during the time it appeared.) Most of the restrictions that have come down the road make sense to me - the two color rule in particular. No opinion on this frictionless business (and its banning does seem to have affected certain people rather badly in an emotional sense), but I can sort of see why certain people were agitating against it. The aspect ratio rule? I don't know what the rationale was behind that one.. This, too, resulted in the further unhinging of a certain individual back in the days of Usenet.

Besides, in terms of defensive equipment - there's two ways of improving it. 1) Invent something that makes hard balls easier to return (and/or harder to attack), and 2) invent something that makes it trickier for the other guy to figure out what's going on. To me, the first category is good, the second, well, there's a limit before things get out of hand - which is the reason for such as the two color rule.

Iskandar

DTecs was groundbreaking because it was able to reverse a lot, considering frictionless pips weren't allowed anymore. That is: the old DTecs which was ruled illegal because the height of the pips and the thickness of the topsheet was over 2.0mm. The new DTecs is still good, but not near as good as the old one.

I agree innovation should focus on getting harder balls to be returned more easily. That's quite easilty done by makingthe pips longer. However, the restriction of topsheet+pips cannot exceed 2.0mm and tha ratio aspect of 1.1 makes this impossible.

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

Actually, if you think about it.. they DID put restrictions on offensive equipment. Several times. In 1959 they restricted it to 4mm thickness and banned bare sponge. Then sometime decades later they banned speed glue. (If you think this doesn't matter, note that there are still people complaining about this.. ) And then there was the rule that was supposed to ban boosting but there's no way to enforce it. Still, as I said earlier, the balance is still way over on the side of offense. They'd have to do something they've never done before if they ever want to redress it, that is, ban sponge and force everyone to play hardbat. And if they do you'll hear howls of protest like you've never heard before. Even from defensive players.

Iskandar

Well, you've only listed male choppers in the OP! A lot of female choppers in the top 100, and a good number in the top 20. Several of the japanese girls are keeping things interesting, but will never be top tier against the attackers. I think Han Ying is the only "old" female defender in the top ranks.

I see a number of old gals lower down the charts. Even Kim Kyung Ah is still picking away at them whippersnappers! #49

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Bh: Not so spinny rubber...

Banning boosting will certainly help classical defenders and in a lesser degree modern ones. A boosted rubber forgives a lot more technical flaws than an unboosted ones. I don't think the solution lies in going back to hardbat.

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

It will "help" but it won't be enough to bring parity. Defenders will continue to be in the minority until the equipment favors offense and defense equally. And to be honest - do we really want that? I don't really think any of us do, really. Remember why the expedite rule exists - and why it's hardly invoked these days.

Iskandar