Table Tennis Tidbits #17

TABLE TENNIS TIDBITS # 17

By Robert Ho

‘16 Polish Open (4-20—24-16) The (Im)Balance of Power

About one week before the ’16 Polish Open, lists of the players expected to compete in this tournament were posted. None of the top 4 men and women respectively from mainland China, who also happen to be the top 4 in the world, were listed. Instead Fang Bo, the losing finalist to Ma Long in the ‘15 world championship and currently #10 in the world, Yan An, currently #18 in the world, Mu Zi, #17 in the world and a losing semifinalist in the ‘15 world championship to Ding Ning, and Wu Yang, currently the best woman chopper in the world, ranked #11 in the world (all rankings as of 4-20-16) were expected as participants. As it turned out no mainland Chinese players competed in this tourney! I speculated that their coaches decided it was important to prepare for the Olympics; but that competition doesn’t start til August 6. Mark Kobernick had a better explanation/speculation. Funding for mainland Chinese athletics is centralized enough so that rather than expending funds to send table tennis players to Poland this year, some other project was given priority.

Other players in the world, whose best hope is to reach the quarterfinals when the best Chinese are present, must have felt more optimistic about winning a championship or placing higher than usual.

In the men’s singles final, Jun Mizutani of Japan, #7 in the world beat Dimitrij Octcharov of Germany #5 in the world -7, 9, 5, 4, -9, 6. The Japanese lefty was more aggressive more of the time and accurate enough with his attack to induce errors from the German righty. Although Octcharov gains greater looping force on his forehand with a near fully extended elbow backswing, Mizutani is more speedily efficient with flexed elbow swing (like Timo Boll of Gemany). Although Mizutani’s beautiful lobbing defense is used at times, he does not use that tactic as frequently since he almost beat Xu Xin by being more aggressive closer to the table.

Yu Mengyu of Singapore, 23^rd in the world met Mu Hirano of Japan, 19^th in the world, in the women’s final. Both players are shakehands, right hand attackers. Hirano is inclined to attack 1^st and is generally more successful winning points thereby. She also exhibits the extended elbow backswing for a powerful loop. Something unusual was observed during a Hirano timeout during the 4^th game: Hirano’s coach opens a folder for the player to inspect—my hunch is that tactical diagrams were displayed to remind Hirano of play options—there hardly was enough time to read a detailed text. In any case Hirano won 10, 9, 10, 7. A sidelight to this match: Yu’s coach appears to be Chen Zhi Bin from China who, at the U.S. Open in Baltimore in the ‘90s, lost the men’s final to Jan Ove Waldner of Sweden after having won the 1^st 2 games (best out of 5, 21 point games) and leading something like 19-16 in the 3^rd.

Seo Hyo Won, South Korean chopper had earlier lost her match to Yu Mengyu 4-2. Seo appears to be continuing her quest to be more offensive in her employing 2^nd and 3^rd ball attacks more frequently. Yu, however, was able to hit through Seo and force errors with hard and accurate attacking. Han Ying of Germany, ranked 10^th in the world, does not seem to have moved beyond somewhat erratic chopping and inconsistent and infrequent attacking, to justify her current ranking, and lost to Kasumi Ishikawa of Japan.

The winners of this tournament and others on down the line must have enjoyed playing deeper into the tournament than might otherwise have been the case if the descendants of Genghis Kahn had been present.