Waldner playing with hardbat

i think this was posted before

What I was going to say, before my dinosaur of a laptop conked out on me, was that from watching Waldner in action with a hardbat I think with the proper coaching (from Steve Berger or from John Tannehill), he could become a quite respectable chopper.  Perhaps not a Bergman or Leach, or even a Pagliaro, but quite respectable nevertheless.

You guys are making way too big of a deal out of this. This match was posted when it first came out. Later, there were interviews with Waldner and some of his friends. Their basic response was "hey, this was just something to do for fun." It was clear from their perspective (and with all due respect to all the great HB players) that they considered this endeavor right up there with playing beer pong at a party.

People don't understand that Waldner simply doesn't feel the need to prove anything to anyone. He plays because he likes playing and he'll play anyway at all, with any type of equipment or rules, just for the fun of it. For a more interesting example, go find the video where he lost to a 1700 player by using a banana as his paddle.

People sometimes forget that a player can't play with his best with each possible equipment.
Even after trainings, as some of you mentioned.
I doubt a way too much that Waldner will be able to beat Barna with hard bat paddle, it is simple - Waldner's muscles are trained for a very different strokes, that first. Second - the art of hard bat has nothing common with the art of sponge bat.
It will be the same if you say that the Best ever Bowling player will be also and super star in the Curling.
In that way of thoughts I think it is normal to loss from a player with bigger experience in the hard bat section.

On this video concretely - J.O.W is looking like he is playing tt for first time with such a paddle.

Another thing - from hard bat to hard bat there is possibility to find a big difference. I have had 4 equal on first time hard bat paddles and they all played different. With just one of them I was able to play up-down good for the possibilities that paddle has.

If a J.O.W played with some not so much suitable hard bat paddle - it is normal to loss by some more experienced fans.
Nobody argue J.O.W is the greatest for OUR time (sponge bats), but he is not the same level player in the hard bat section and I really believe he also understand it.
It will take a several years to develop his skills and tactics for a hard bat battles and I doubt a serious player (busy with normal trainings player I mean) has that time.

By the way - I was impressed by the skills that some of the players shown in the last Ping Pong WC. They used some unknown for me paddles with 3mm blue sponge. Unknown, because I have never played with these paddles, only I have seen them by TV/Internet.
Do you believe if a J.O.W has such a paddle and play with this kind of paddle.....Do you really believe he will be the next Ping Pong World Champ? I don't think so, but I will be a very happy if that happened, as you can see my avatar and who is my favorite player...

Does anyone of you guys know what kind of baddles are those "real" hard bats? Does the rubbers have any grippyness and are they pimples out or in?

benfb wrote: You guys are making way too big of a deal out of this. This match was posted when it first came out. Later, there were interviews with Waldner and some of his friends. Their basic response was "hey, this was just something to do for fun." It was clear from their perspective (and with all due respect to all the great HB players) that they considered this endeavor right up there with playing beer pong at a party. People don't understand that Waldner simply doesn't feel the need to prove anything to anyone. He plays because he likes playing and he'll play anyway at all, with any type of equipment or rules, just for the fun of it. For a more interesting example, go find the video where he lost to a 1700 player by using a banana as his paddle.

Agreed. He would have also done better if he was sober.

roundrobin wrote: [QUOTE=berndt_mann]What I was going to say, before my dinosaur of a laptop conked out on me, was that from watching Waldner in action with a hardbat I think with the proper coaching (from Steve Berger or from John Tannehill), he could become a quite respectable chopper.  Perhaps not a Bergman or Leach, or even a Pagliaro, but quite respectable nevertheless.

All former hardbat greats don't hold a candle of what Waldner was capable of.  Waldner would kick all these dudes' ass for sure if he seriously trained with HB.


I'm inclined to doubt that.  And I've seen elite to world class hardbat play, both in person and on video, since 1960.  Take a look on BritishPathe on YouTube at the 20 year old Barna in 1931, merriily hitting forehands from the forehand side, forehands from the backhand side, backhands (and according to no less a personage than the late Marty Reisman, Barna had the best hardbat backhand ever) from the forehand side, and backhands from the backhand side against a relentless English chopper whose last name was Eames.  Barna's backhand, taken off the bounce, which he could direct to anyplace on his opponent's court, was far more wicked than Waldner could imagine.  Yes, I said that Waldner had a pretty decent backhand chop, but Barna's relentless backhand topspins would have chewed around it till it fell off.

Waldner's best years were in those interesting table tennis times when hidden serves and speed glued rubbers were the norm for table tennis internationals.  Hard rubber table tennis does not incorporate either of those practices.  You're pretty much naked out there, except for a thin covering of short pimples without sponge affixed to your blade. 

Reisman, with his penchant for colorful language, told me over the phone that even in his forties he would have "crucified" Waldner.  Dick Miles would have, with his circular forehand drive and deadly chop defense, worn Waldner to a frazzle.  Bohumil Vana, a 2-time World Singles Champion with the hardest forehand of the 1940s despite his diminuitive size, would never have let Waldner get in either a forehand or a backhand topspin.  Ditto for Ferenc Sido, 1953 World Champion with a nasty two-winged attack and a stonewall defense. 

All of these greats are gone.  But having seen them and having been myself a 4-time intermediate level hard rubber singles champion (2 U.S. Opens, 1 National Championship, 1 North American Championship), from age 57 to age 62, and the only hard rubber player to have incorporated a reverse penhold backhand, bonth attacking and chopping, I'm inclined to hold off on Waldner's ticket to the pantheon of hard rubber greats, while at the same time acknowledging that he is indeed a pretty darn good glockponger (that is, drive-by shooter attacker with inverted sponge).  That would not work against Richard Bergmann, four-time World Singles Champion and supreme defender.  It probably would not work against Anglica Rozeanu, six-time World Singles Champion who would in all likelihood have handed Waldner his Donic sponsored shorts.

Berndt Mann


Edited by berndt_mann - 02/04/2015 at 11:22pm

Dear roundrobin,

Thank you for welcoming me to the forum, and remembering some of my greatest hits from the now nonexistent About.com forum.

I got got finished watching Waldner play against the gentleman named Hammar with various implements, including a compact disc and a banana.  I don't think Waldner's ready for prime time with the banana, but he did get in a few good licks with the compact disc.  It makes you wonder what Waldner might be able to do with an old 78 rpm record of the great Irish tenor John McCormack singing Handel's "Come My Beloved".  Bonus points for cracking that record with a forehand or backhand loop.  Double bonus points for Waldner singing along with the peerless McCormick the "guide me safely to her arms" portion of that aria, Amstel Lites or no Amstel Lites.


Edited by berndt_mann - 02/05/2015 at 3:34pm

benfb wrote: Hi Brendt, I don't think you're being fair to Waldner. He was never a power looper like Ma Long or Wang Liqin. He's always understood how to control the ball, to put touch on it, as well as how to attack. Of any modern world champion, he's the one that probably would adapt pretty easily to hard bat play if it was necessary and could probably match up well with hard bat greats of the past. Now, however, he just plays around. Even in his sponge matches, he doesn't take them too seriously. That applies to pretty much anything he's done in the last ten years.

He's just having fun trolling me.    Wise man needs an outlet to vent daily.

Dear doraemon,

I've answered these questions before on the About.com and rec.sport,table tennis forums before, but since I'm new to this forum, I'll repeat my answers.

If, at any age, Reisman or any of the greats of the first and second Golden Ages of table tennis (Barna, Bellak, Szabados, Glancz, Ruth Aarons, McClure, Vana, Bergmann, Leach, Reisman, Miles, Leah Neuberger, Angelica Rozeanu to name just a few were to employ a hardbat of their preference against Waldner's speed glued inverted, they would certainly lose, and lose badly.  A hard rubber racket simply is not a sufficient weapon to compete against a racket shod with speed glued inverted rubber, such as was used by Waldner in his prime in the late 1980s and 1990s.

All of the above mentioned players could defend as well as attack.  Except for some South Korean women, Viktoria Pavlovitch, Joo Se Hyuk, Chen Weixing, Liu Song and the Ukrainian guy with the unspellable last name, defenders have been rendered all but extinct due to the all-encompassing power of the speed glued (now boosted or tuned) loop kill. 

 Answering your questions in reverse order, if Marty were to use a modern speed glued or boosted racket against Waldner employing say a Stiga Flisan hard rubber racket, Waldner would prevail, and prevail easily.  In the days of Marty's prime, late 1940s early 1950s and again in 1997, inverted rubber was unknown.  Well, actually it was known in 1997, when Marty at age 67 beat Larry Hodges for the National Hard Rubber Singles Championship.  This was not easy, as Hodges is himself a former Singles and Doubles Hard Rubber Champion. 

The relevant question to me is:  why would Marty, to whom sponge was anathema, want to use a Waldner type racket?  Would you ask Cyrano de Bergerac, a master swordsman, to use instead a blunderbuss?

Finally, I don't see what is unfair in limiting equipment to that which can't be doctored without totally lousing up your game, provides more opportunites for tactical play, and which permits all playing styles (according to Barna, the loop drive was used as far back as 1926) without favoring one style, all-out attack, over all others.

Finally finally, we do share one thing in common.  In 1961, I was Class B badminton champion at Indiana University.  Maybe as a team we could take Waldner and Persson (a really nice guy, BTW) to the cleaners.



Edited by berndt_mann - 02/04/2015 at 11:31pm

Who are the "other players" who are not dependent upon modern equipment in order to play table tennis successfully, in particular at the international level?  Does modern equipment, then, exist for those who are dependent upon it, but not for those who are not? 

As for general fitness, that depends on how it pertains to table tennis.  At levels below the elite level, say about 2200, there are many competent players whose bodies are somewhat on the amorphous side, and a few who are downright obese.

The old timers, though smaller in stature and lighter than today's players, were, and had to be, a pretty fit bunch.  Richard Bergmann, a 4-time World Singles Champion, would get up every morning and run six miles.  Viktor Barna, a 5-time World Singles Champion, was a good tennis player who practiced on occasion with tennis great Big Bill Tilden. 

Alex Ehrlich survived a 12,000 shot pushfest lasting over two hours against Hungary's Paneth Farkas.  Lazslo Bellak, a quite muscular man for his day, was a fine diver and swimmer.

No one denies that today's internationals are very fit, nor do I deny that sponge stroking techniques or footwork are in some way faulty, particularly when employed with sponge.  I remain skeptical that the loop driving approach used by virtually all of today's players would be effective at the international level against the greats of yore, as none of them, male or female, who employed such an approach using excessive topspin had ever won a World Singles Championship.  Modern inverted sponge is an extremely frictive medium.  Hard rubber is not.  It is a rubber best employed by hitters and defenders.

Though I'm a musician, not a physician (physicist?) I believe we can agree that the physics of badminton is entirely different from that of table tennis.  And table tennis of any age remains table tennis, though it is rather important to take its permutations into account.  The table tennis of 1902-1904, with its "banjo" (parchment covered) battledores souped up with ground glass or emory powder, polished wood bats, and felt, crepe, leather, cork, and prehistoric hard rubber coverings made from the cash mat at an apothecary (drug) store, with its screw (sidespin) serves, cut shots (chops), round arm (topspin) forehand drives was not quite the table tennis we play today.  Nor was the table tennis from 1926-1952, when hard rubber was the preferred choice of elites to internationals.  And so on and so on until today, Feb. 5, 2015.  Arnold Parker, an early three-ball killer of the 1900s with a nasty screw serve and round-arm forehand follow-up, and Percy Bromfield, stonewaller and backhand flicker extraordinaire, would be dumbfounded at what table tennis has become.  Hell, I was born in 1942, and I'm dumbfounded at what table tennis has become.




Edited by berndt_mann - 02/05/2015 at 4:30pm

I saw Waldner at an exhibition in Spin NY and Reisman was there.  There was a famous American Olympian, I think it was Carl Lewis, in the front row (very crowded there).  Reisman was standing in front of this athlete and had his back turned to the actual exhibition and was trying to "imponera" with Lewis, blocking the whole event for the rest of the spectators.  Never saw him play but it left an impression for me.

Definitely true that Berndt is about as young as it is possible to be and still have learned with hardbat.  In fact, I am surprised that he did even at that age. 

I am 57 and when I was playing tournaments in the 70s hardbat was already a scarce thing to see, and only "old guys" used it.  When I was about 14 I played one of my first tournaments and lost badly to an old guy from Chicago using a hardbat.  How old?  Who knows, when you are 14 everybody is old.  It was an important lesson at the time, you can't just try to blast through people.  I played the same guy a couple of years later and by then I was able to beat him.  I was bigger and stronger (probably helped a lot), and I had experienced in the mean time some guys who used anti, and other strange things, and I just played smarter.  In another two years I would probably have annihilated him but I don't think I ever played him again.

Good hard bat players still impress me.  I can see the appeal but I don't want to play that way myself.  It feels utterly weird to me.  I can still play solid offensive sponge table tennis.  But I have to work at it all the time and be fanatical about watching my weight.  When I can't do that anymore I will go with some sort of pips on BH but will keep inverted in the FH.