Table tennis: defense against top class players

In 2005, Michael Maze made it to the semi-finals of the world championships in Shanghai, beating the world number 3 Wang Hao and Hao Shuai. Many points consisted in high balls, and the two Chinese top players made a lot of mistakes against those.

But can we consider Chinese players as "weak" against defensive players?

I don't think so... :)

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• ryu seung min
• michael maze
• hao shuai
• wang hao
• timo boll
• xu xin
• wang liqin
• jan ove waldner
• ma lin
• adrien mattenet
• zhang jike
• table tennis
• defense
• high balls
• tennis de table
• ping pong
• world championships
• olympic games
• athen 2004
• world cup
• qatar open

[CrawSpecificated]

It's a nice video ;) BUT: Sticking to the table and winning the point SHOULD be the solution and the rule, instead of the exception. Well done.

[timoboll88]

@CrawSpecificated Thanks :)!

[IIkingdomII]

lol, you don't win by lobbing. 

[timoboll88]

@IIkingdomII I'm not meaning that you win by lobbing, I'm just talking about the tendency by some players to go far away from the table (Mattenet, Maze, Ovtcharov, Mizutani), which is best seen when the player actually has to lob.

And actually, against Hao Shuai, Maze did win some very important points by lobbing.

[IIkingdomII]

@timoboll88 ya, the chinese coaches were commenting on that. they don't normally practice against lobbing, which is why wang hao lost those points. after that game, wang hao added some lobbing practice, and in the next game against maze, you see him dominating. lobbing also is seen as something you are forced to do when you can't handle the heat, or if you let your opponent attack first. there's no glory in lobbing.

[timoboll88]

@IIkingdomII You can find glory (it's aesthetic), but in many cases not victory lol.

I know that they go lobbing because they cannot handle the speed of their opponent, but some players tend to take more risks instead of going defense (like Timo Boll who sticks to the table and tries to counter top spin).

[heggoy07]

Why didn't he pull of a dropshot ?