German Open 2012

On technique, I think Ovtcharov improved his BH over-the-table loop (seems to have more control now), and his FH (incredible that he's improved his FH by so much over such a short period of time), it's very powerful and consistent now. His rallying skills are now really really good. The opening of the game with the BH over-the-table loop followed by powerful continuous FH looping looks very Jike-like.

I think his FH high-toss serve is really good, coupled with that BH serve he should be fine. He really shouldn't use that FH tomahawk, it always seems to put him in a bad position and it's way too slow and predictable (in terms of placement and spin) compared to the other 2 serves.  

It's also good he's working on his FH push and FH flips (won quite a few with them), but he does need quite a bit more control in the short game to win against the top players. His long pushes are not deep and fast enough, short pushes seem to go out too often which resulted in him losing the initiative. It's not easy but I think Ovtcharov is pretty smart and should be able to handle that. 

Now I think he also needs to make his game more complete, by improving his BH block and FH close-to-table counterloop. There were way too many points he lost because he couldn't control the spin from his opponent's loop, points which he should have earned because those loops weren't that dangerous to begin with (esp against Chuang). 

*troll alert*