May 20, 2013

Tip of the Week

Tools and Tactics for the Physically Challenged.

2013 World Championships - China Dominates, But Was "Nice" in the Doubles

They just ended. Defending Champion Zhang Jike just defeated Wang Hao in the Men's Singles Final as I wrote this - I held back on posting this half an hour so I could get that result. You can get complete results here. It's a repeat of the 2011 Worlds, where Zhang also defeated Wang in the final. (Wang Hao won in 2009 over Wang Liqin. Singles and Doubles events are held every two years.) The final score was 7,8,-6,12,-5,7. Zhang was down 5-7 in the last game but won the last six points in a row.

As usual, China dominated the singles events. All four semifinalists in Men's and Women's Singles are Chinese. They could have dominated the doubles events as well. Both teams in the Women's Doubles final were Chinese. However, Taiwan won Men's Doubles, and North Korea won Mixed Doubles. What's going on?

As the Chinese coaches at my club explained it, the Chinese were being nice. They did have entries in these events, but most of the top men only played singles. In Men's Doubles, China's Ma Lin/Hao Shuai were in the final (losing 4-2 to Chen Chien-An/Chuang Chih-Yuan of Taiwan), Wang Liqin/Zhou Yu played (losing 4-2 to the Taiwan duo in the semifinals), and Chen Qi/Fang Bo also played (losing 4-3 in the round of sixteen to Chan Kazuhiro/Kenta Matsudaira of Japan). While Ma Lin and Wang Liqin are still great players (ranked #8 and #9 in the world), they are the "older" veterans of the Chinese team, as is Hao Shuai (#12). Chen Qi (#17) and Fang Bo (#30) are younger, but are not yet among the "elite."

Similarly, in Mixed Doubles, China only had four teams: Wang Liqin/Rao Jingwen, Chen Qi/Hu Limei, and Qiu Yike/Wen Jia. The three men were ranked #9, 17, and unranked. The three women were ranked #106, unranked, and #35.

Where were the top four men in the world, all from China - Xu Xin, Ma Long, Wang Hao, and Zhang Jike? Where were the top three women in the world, all from China - Ding Ning, Liu Shiwen, and Li Xiaoxia? Not to mention world #5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 16, and 22, all from China? Most were playing singles, but not doubles. Ma Long and Xu Xin were the defending champions in Men's Doubles (defeating teammates Ma Lin/Chen Qi in the final), but did not defend their title. In fact, at the last Worlds, China not only swept all five events, all five events were all-Chinese finals. (Here are results from 2011.) Interestingly, China decided they wanted Women's Doubles, and so of course took that easily in the all-Chinese final.

So yes, China is being nice. Other than occasionally Timo Boll, few can really challenge them in singles right now, and so they swept both singles events with ease. Even if Boll or someone else does defeat a Chinese player, guess what? He faces another the next round. Then another. And so on. And their Chinese opponents are prepared - they have spent years practicing with Chinese players trained to play like Timo Boll.

One additional note - the Chinese weren't the only top players not playing doubles. Germany's Timo Boll and Dimitrij Ovtcharov, ranked #5 and #7 in the world, did not play Men's Doubles. It's especially interesting since Boll is a lefty, and so they would have had a lefty-righty team. Perhaps the Chinese and Germans were just resting their players for singles - but that's not happened much in the past, and in a tournament that lasts a week, with athletes who are used to training six hours a day, I don't really think that's the reason, or at least a good one.

ITTF Development and Education & Training Workshop at the Worlds

Here's info on it.

2013 World Championships Results and Coverage

They end in Paris today. Here's the ITTF World Championships page, where you can follow all the action - results, live scoring, articles, video, pictures, etc. Here's their Facebook Page. They do great coverage. Equally great coverage is at Table Tennista. They have articles on every aspect, going up every day.  

ITTF Daily Show

Here's the ITTF World Championships Daily Shows:

2013 WTTC Shots of the Day

The ITTF has been having a shot of the day throughout the tournament. (They skipped days 1 and 3.) I've posted previous ones; here are all of them. Or you can browse the ITTF Channel for all sorts of videos from the Worlds.

  • Day 2 (Between the legs shot.)
  • Day 4 (Note the next-to-last shot, when the player on the far side changes hands, then follows with a big backhand loop.)
  • Day 5 (My pick for Shot of the Worlds - and watch Ma Lin's expression! He's the penholder on far side.)
  • Day 6
  • Day 7

NCTTA May 2013 Newsletter

Here's the May issue of the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association Newsletter.

John Harrington's 70th Birthday Cake

Here it is! (Yes, a ping-pong cake.) If you can't see it on Facebook, try here.

Powerful Yogurt Ping-Pong Man Commercial

Here it is! (25 sec)

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