The future of defence?

is the poly ball used in this video? - just curious.

very active modern defenders btw.

Their pushes do not look spinny but its hard to tell, chops and loops definitely have loads of spin on them.


ps. those annoying people yelling in the background need to be penalized.

Edited by DreiZ - 08/15/2014 at 7:42pm

GeneralSpecific wrote: He's a classic defender. His chops are good but he needs to become a modern defender and attack a LOT more with his forehand if he has any hopes of going far. Classic defense is dead at the top.

Edited by skip3119 - 08/15/2014 at 9:23pm

This boy has a good potential but I think his chop technique has to improve because a lot of his balls come back to high. Of course a high ball can be very dangerous but it has to be very long. He doesn't seem to control very well the length and the height of his chopping balls.

Edited by kakapo - 08/16/2014 at 2:30am

ChichoFicho wrote: Defence is dead at top level. Of course, he can make it to top 200 in the world in 20 years from now, if he is lucky!

Many of the defenders in the top 100 developed their offensive forehands late in life. If he has serious potential, his style won't prevent him from being in the top 50. His training partners might...

Reaching top 100 is unrealistic. He needs to be extremely talented and smart to achieve it. The only defenders that played at such level for the past 20 years are Chtchetinine and Matsushita. When Chtchetinine retires, that's going to be probably the end of the defensive style at high level.

Most people tend to refer to Joo and the likes of him as defenders. They are not. Have you ever seen Weixing or Gionis chop with their forehand? Never. Joo started to play more defensive oriented style only when he was not fast enough to play loop vs loop. The only world class defender who is still active is Chtchetinine. His peak ranking was ~40, if I am not mistaken.

A few years ago there was a very talented junior defender from Sweden. He was way more talented than this one. Never managed to adapt to the speed and the spin of the men's game though.


Edited by ChichoFicho - 08/19/2014 at 12:23pm

ChichoFicho wrote: Most people tend to refer to Joo and the likes of him as defenders. They are not. Have you ever seen Weixing or Gionis chop with their forehand? Never. Joo started to play more defensive oriented style only when he was not fast enough to play loop vs loop. The only world class defender who is still active is Chtchetinine. His peak ranking was ~40, if I am not mistaken. A few years ago there was a very talented junior defender from Sweden. He was way more talented than this one. Never managed to adapt to the speed and the spin of the men's game though.

Gionis definitely chops on his forehand.  Chen Weixing does as well, though he more often chops with his backhand on the forehand side, which is IMO the same thing.

Edited by NextLevel - 08/19/2014 at 12:26pm

ChichoFicho wrote: A few years ago there was a very talented junior defender from Sweden. He was way more talented than this one. Never managed to adapt to the speed and the spin of the men's game though.

It is nice to see this kid.  He's fifteen.  He will get better.  Hope there are more like him.  I disagree with ChichoFicho about this, mainly because I think that Joo and Chen are most certainly defenders.  This young guy will need to learn to attach more with his forehand.  He will.

By the way, I was also pretty impressed with how well the opponent played against the defender, since it seems unlikely that he could have played very much against that style.

It seems table tennis is alive and well.

Matt Pimple wrote: NextLevel wrote: The other point here is that the reason there are not more defenders in the top 100 is not purely about the style - it is also about the fact that player are not pushed towards it. I agree that this is the main reason as there just aren't enough coaches out there teaching or advocating a defensive style. Anywhere you look kids are taught how to loop.