ITTF started the commercial WTT a couple of years back, almost the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic. WTT is confusing and worse than the previous Opens format because it turns the venue background black, lighting dark, and camera angle lower and along the net. A lot of time you lose one or both players in the picture when they are retrieving shots far away from the table, and you hardly see the ball spinning and curving off the paddles. These shortcomings are mitigated during the World Team Championships at Chengdu, China, as there are multiple cameras from many angles, and the viewing area is vastly expanded. This is expected since this is the signature table tennis event of the year.
On Oct 8, 2022 China and Japan met twice, at the Men’s Semi and later Women’s Final. China won both (3:2 and 3:0), but there are plenty of noteworthy dramas, stories, and strategies. First the Women’s Final. The starting match of Chen Meng (CHN) vs Miyuu Kihara (JPN) is nothing to talk about, except that Japan not fielding the highest-ranked Hina Hayata was surprising. Hayata played only once during the whole tournament and barely escaped with a win in the semi against Germany, so maybe she is injured or not at her best. The second match between Wang Manyu and Mima Ito was much closer and the only competitive one. The first three sets were hotly contested, with Ito attacking and Wang defending all the time: either Ito got a winner, or she made an error and lost the point. Not sure if Ito had smashed THIS hard non-stop for so long before. Wang Manyu being much taller and covering a much bigger space helped her returning a lot of hard shots, winning two out of three. Eventually Ito got tired, Wang attacked, and the fourth set was settled early on. The third match, Sun Yingsha vs Miyu Nagasaki, however, was the biggest letdown. It started OK, but the level of plays dropped so quickly that by the third set both players won by silly mistakes gifted by the opponents, capped and ended with a awful service return error by Nagasaki. Nagasaki played below her level since this was her first final and high leverage match, and one wonders what if Hayata was there.
Now to the Men’s Semi. The biggest story for casual audience is Tomokazu Harimoto won two points, beating Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong. It is interesting to dissect how Harimoto won, especially against Fan. Harimoto should be 10 cm taller and much stronger than when he came up in 2017. He used to be strong and quick with backhand but weak in forehand. One can clearly see Harimoto growing in body size and improving in techniques. So a mistake would be to use the old strategy against a new Harimoto, which was what China did there. The new Harimoto no longer rushes his backhand attacks and is a more balanced, rallying-type player. His forehand is still the weaker side, but since he is taller, he can handle the high arching shots better and defend more space from his right side. Quite a few times Fan hit hard to Harimoto’s forehand. If Harimoto counterlooped he likely would make errors and lose, so he simply blocked it back, and Fan was caught off-guard and hurt by his own power coming towards him, hence returned the ball long off the table. The match was decided by the final moments at the 4th and 5th sets with the smallest margin, so this forehand strategy made a win vs loss difference. It must be noted as well that Harimoto had better luck, net balls at both sets at the final moments. He had the same luck, net/edge against Wang Chuqin at the 4th set too, helping turn 7:9 to 11:9.
Another story is how Wang Chuqin got the final point for China, after a loss earlier, in his own, first ever, maximal pressure event. Wang Chuqin’s weakness is his forehand rallying ability. If you do three forehand exchanges with him, he will make an error at the fourth. This is how everybody plays him, sending balls to his left. He also tends to retreat from the table more than his teammates. It is OK in normal times since he has power, but at crucial matches when your opponents are playing well and you are not, being too far away from the table will make things going downhill faster. Wang Chuqin was sending forehands long all the time during the Harimoto match for no good reason, even not in forehand counters, so he was too tense. But he still got his chance at the end of the 4th set, until bad luck struck.
Hence it was truly a big question mark how Wang Chuqin could handle the 5th and final match against Togami Shunsuke. Things didn’t look bright when Shunsuke rushed to a 9:4 lead in the first set. Wang was still hitting forehands long, and Shunsuke was more motivated and forehand blazing. Shunsuke is tall and fast, runs a lot, has strong loops from both wings. But, he has only one gear, the speedy gear, and Wang has an upper hand in serve and serve return. Sensing a loss at 4:9, Wang settled down and cut down his forehand errors. He used serve and serve return to win a few easy points, then prioritized his backhand to defend Shunsuke’s loops. Wang’s backhand is very strong because he can defend, change speed, and turn defense to offense instantly. By improving his own level and Shunsuke dropping his, Wang escaped with a win 12:10 in the first set. Wang continued this backhand-oriented strategy in the 2nd and 3rd set. An animated Shunsuke was able to match Wang till the midpoint at both sets, but he did much more running and looping and got tired afterwards, and the final scores reflected that. A conclusion is that Wang Chuqin needs to improve his forehand stability, but he has proven, mentally and physically, to be dependable at crucial moments.
The biggest story, however, should have been Ma Long, scoring a point against Mizuki Oikawa as the 3rd single. This might be the last World Team Championships for Ma Long. In the 21st century we have witnessed true greats in various sports playing and now their retiring, and Ma Long is one of them. Ma Long at 33 is a shell of his prime, and he has a glaring weakness to his right, forehand side that practically yells “Hit me”. Everybody, from matches earlier, India, Sweden, etc, I mean, everybody, constantly attacked his right table corner, almost sad to see. Oikawa was no exception, and he did it perfectly in the first set, scoring half his points off the strategy. Oikawa would send a ball down the line to Ma’s right. Ma either missed it completely, or when he returned the shot, it was so weak that Oikawa easily hit it to Ma’s backhand open court to win the point.
How did Ma Long respond to win the next three sets? For the 2nd and 3rd sets, Ma upped his backhand exchange pressure to Oikawa’s backhand so that Oikawa could no longer hit the ball down the line: since the ball to his backhand came fast and long, if he changed direction regardless, it would go long down the line. This strategy largely neutralized Oikawa’s attack on Ma’s well-known weakness. And Ma had the advantage in the serve and serve return department, and his forehand cross table. In the 4th set Ma clearly improved his form, and he now hit straight winners even when Oikawa attacked his right side. With this ability there was nothing Oikawa could do.
On the next day, Oct 9, 2022, China and Germany met for the Men’s Final, featuring the same lineups from the Semis: why change when you win? The difference was Ma Long became the 2nd single, and Wang Chuqin the 3rd. Qiu Dang won the only set against China for Germany, vs Ma Long. While the results would have been the same, a safer plan for China should have been picking Wang against Qiu. Technique-wise a left-handed shakehander (Wang) is literally the worst possible nightmare for a right-handed penholder (Qiu). Ma had the first three sets against Qiu closer than against Oikawa, even though Ma was leading most of the way. Again, from the very first point of the match Qiu attacked Ma’s right side, relentlessly. Ma tried to pin Qiu down at his backhand side, but surprisingly Qiu’s backhand is up to the task, even better than Ma’s, so Ma won by smaller margins, with his advantage at serve and serve return area. Only in the fourth set did Ma find his former form and begin ripping winners from his right side, same as in the Oikawa contest. It seems that Ma Long needs three sets’ warmup for his movement, then the match became a runaway train. But playing style-wise Wang Chuqin could have an easier time against Qiu.
With a better luck or the absence of bad luck in the Semi Fan Zhendong would have avoided the first loss of his career at the World or Olympics Team events. No biggies though, as almost everybody, including the best of the best in history, has lost in Teams. Waldner lost many times. Liu Guoliang lost two points in 2000 and China lost as a result. Kong Linghui also lost two points, saved only by Liu Guozheng, in 2001. Wang Liqin, Ma Lin, Ma Long, Zhang Jike all lost once to Boll. The only world champion-caliber player who had never lost at the World or Olympics Teams, I believe, is Wang Hao. But Ma Long hasn’t lost a Team match for like 10 years or more, and he has played till the finals in all these years. This is as remarkable as his other achievements, including 3 straight World Singles titles and 2 Olympics Singles Gold medals. Ma Long no longer has the energy to play the 5th match, which is why he should only be the 3rd single, unless China thinks 3 and done. Everybody knows how to beat Ma Long: doable these days, but only if you can execute that winning strategy against Ma’s countermeasures. A bit like the old Waldner, vulnerable, but still hard to beat. Or Roger Federer after 2017. As one ages, the legs weaken the first, and Federer could no longer run to his forehand side as much and fast as he wished. So he was more content to stay at his backhand side. As a result, he was no longer rattled by too many shots to his left and was ready to do it all day long. With this change in mentality he started to beat Nadal on hard courts since Federer’s backhand no longer rushed and made as many mistakes as before. Nadal getting older and slower contributed to that effect too.
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