OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Tomokazu Harimoto wins men's singles. Mima Ito wins women's singles. What is going on?

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Homer J. Simpson

Great for Japanese table tennis, should give them a real boost!

It does make me wonder though... if this were to happen to say Australia or USA, where the sport of TT has a quite low profile compared to other sports, what would happen? Would it give a sudden boost to the sport? I guess funding would get a boost as the country would have a real chance of getting future medals... but not sure what else...

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A bit premature to ask but, did we have to ruin table tennis to save it?

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Homer J. Simpson

Is Mario Amizic still head coach?

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Chasse Patate

They trained hard and played better on that day, I suppose... Kudos to them!



Perhaps you could be a little less cryptic? And who is "we"? If it's present company, "we" had nothing to do with it...

Iskandar

Do you really think table tennis has been ruined? In what way? I prefer aggression and tactics to long rallies from mid-distance which are more about repeating a physical feat than it is about clever tactics or outsmarting your opponent; I may be in a minority camp here, but I think the 40+ ball has created a game that is more serve and attack driven, a game where retired great Ma Lin and his infamous aggression would be the norm not the rare and unusual exception.

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User of the one of a kind "Smith" grip: here to revolutionize the game.

Naah.. he's always complaining about something.. and he's often cryptic about it. Most of the time it's got something to do with ITTF (which is "ruining table tennis"), and the only thing I can think about that might have to do with ITTF here IS the plastic ball. So trying to decipher this, it's probably got something to do with Harimoto getting some sort of advantage from the plastic ball. I mean, there's no frictionless rubbers involved in the Japan Open finals, so it can't be that. I agree that if table tennis has been a "ruined", then ruin it some more. The mens' and womens' finals, and the Harimoto-Ma Long semis were some of the best matches I've ever seen.

Iskandar

There is something to your point here. I played back in the 1970's and at that time the idea (at least at my level of play) was you put forward your best shots and the opponent responded with theirs and whose ever shots could overcome the others won. Sure there was some jockeying for position (a series of pushes until I could jump around and loop) and occasionally some side spin thrown in; but all in all a different game than today. Just look at the serves of Jonyer and others of that era - pretty straight forward low back spinners.

This hit home this year when I started taking lessons to get my game back and players told me things like. If you see they have trouble with chop to their backhand, or maybe a particular serve of mine (I have two or three different serves!!!! LOL) then don't give them anything else, except to mix it up ever so often. Upon first hearing this it seemed almost evil, at the very least ignoble. To take advantage of a weakness instead of winning with your strength.

Now I know this is not how it really is, there has always been players figuring out how to beat the other player by specifically treating them as an individual. It even happens in chess, though the saying is to play the board not the opponent. But the reverse does happen. I am just talking about a matter of degree, and long rallies of chops or blocks against a loop attack was necessarily based on you having a dependable, repeatable weapon. Now days the players are much more well rounded - IMHO, YMMV and all the other standard provisos, etc. That well rounded-ness makes for more ways to win and thus more varied and interesting points.

There is a chinese coach stating that the japanese are using a more direct hit with the new ball. Just at the rebound. It is very fast and take the chinese by surprise. The ball has less spin more speed and ball often short on the table so it is more uncommun to chinese.

This isn't new, though. Watch some of the slightly older players (Matsudaira, Niwa, etc., even Lee Sangsu) - they started playing like this way before the plastic ball came along. The women have been doing it also. Even Mizutani tries to play close to the table. Of course Harimoto is doing it at a somewhat higher level at the moment. He's still only ranked 10th at the moment, though (behind Boll and Ovtcharov, and Niwa and Lee).

Iskandar

sderyke2002 wrote:


That may be the offensive player's credo. "My loop / smash / drive is bigger than yours". The defensive player's credo is pretty much what you said. I try to play everyone as an individual, but to start with often have a default of "their backhand will be weaker than their forehand" which can be initially to my detriment until I work them out. Surely there were choppers & blockers back when you originally played.

A perhaps unrelated anecdote from chess (which I have been accused of playing like in table tennis).

My son entered a chess tournament in a low category. While waiting, I got to talking to the mother of a very good teenage chess player. She said that most chess players memorised vast amounts of openings and sequences of play, including her son. She did mention a particular player who did not do this, but played his chess "on the fly", which apparently is not very common.

Consider most typical offensive players to be like chess players who do large amounts of memorisation, and defensive players like chess players who take on the game as it is and "rely on their wits" to win. I don't think that this has changed much over the years.

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Good observation. Table tennis has always had a beautiful yin and yang between offense and defense. The reduction in spin has further skewed the balance between power and finesse. For defensive players at all levels, that’s a shame.

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No matter how good you are at something, there's always about a million people better than you.
Homer J. Simpson

The point is though - they weren't particularly successful doing that with the celluloid ball.

Now that the plastic ball has arrived and Harimoto is using this new style, he's effective. He wouldn't have been effective playing this way with the celluloid ball.

One of our top juniors plays in this way, absolutely crushes (with a pure, flat contact) any ball above the net. Playing him as a defender is tough because suddenly chop height is more relevant than length which is counter-intuitive with regard to how we've been playing for the past few years.

More and more juniors will start to play this way and spin will become less relevant over the next decade if the plastic ball remains as it is.

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I honestly think it would do nothing to the national recognition of TT in Oz as there is no vested interests that have large investments in the sport. The US would I imagine be similar although the USATT do have some decent investors in Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and they have a much better marketing approach to anything i've seen locally. Also, 300 million people vs 23 million in population. Market size makes a difference here too.

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Huh? That's news to me... Citation?

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