Anyone know if there were any excuses for this loss by Tim, such as injury? Or does he simply have no idea how to play against this style?

:)

(At Tim's level, he knows how LP works and how to deal with it. He must have failed to adjust?)

Thats cute

Should be interesting to see what happens at the US Nationals next week... plenty of "wild card" possibilities at this point

I'll be sure to look for them in action.

yes, this is definitely possible... as long as ma long is restricted to playing with a q-tip instead of a paddle

you would use your normal setup... also, i forgot that ma long would have to be extremely sleep deprived and would have to stand on one leg throughout the match

unfortunately, I'd say you're absolutely correct

I think the education will help Tim's game if that's the case.  Sometimes, better players are too used to winning because they are better and not because they are using the right strategy.

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He certainly knows how LP works, has the experience of playing against LP players, and he knows how to beat LP players.

He got so confident that he didn't think that he needed to observe all those rules playing against LP - he could just simply over-power his opponent.  I think that's the reason that he lost.

Im sure Tim will benifit from his experience, it is jusy one of those things, 

also playing a LP chopper is not the same as playing a lp blocker and technition like the Dr

 My mate has been playing two years and uses double pips and he has already beaten half the NZ Jnr team , then he played a anti chopper and took nearly 60 mins to win, it was like watching a 1940's game

That's true; it won't be a career-ending loss for him at all. It is, however, a harsh wake-up call to every American that thought Tim had somewhat of a chance to break the top 50 in the world. Ma Long or Zhang Jike would slaughter this guy. 

Uh... does anyone think he would break the top 50 in the world

Trust me, that won't happen.

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ITTF ranked Timothy Wang as #367.

He needs to break into top 100 first.

(Eugene Wang has been in top 100, but has a hard time to break into top 50.)

Would love to see the entire match. Pretty strong field - T. Wang was only the 4th seed.

Riddle me this: what is an OX long pips player going to do to the ball other than return it dead with his pips, no matter where he places it?

Those were best of seven matches.  He lost one in 5 and the other in 6.

Riddle me this: What OX Long Pips player of notable level is only going to use said pips for every service return? 

However, the asterisk of "no matter where he places it" doesn't work, because that wasn't even considered in the post I responded to. 

The comment I responded to was, " ..he could have easily served dead balls the entire time and finished the next ball. i'm surprised after this many years of training/matches he hasn't figured this out." 

If both of them played the top 100 players in the USA, we all know who would have a massively higher win count.

Nine times out of ten freak results involve unorthodox/pips players, and technically superior players getting the jitters.

 The doctor can live off his reputation from that win for the rest of his TT career, and good luck to him for it, and the army of coat tail swingers who are gonna beat him and think they have a chance with Wang by proxy.

He plays very smart and his style is very unconventional.  If he was having a good day and Tim was having a bad day, this is not that surprising of an outcome.

ILya

If you have played with good ox lp player you would know that they can push really fast and low no spin returns to weird places. And you know it´s really hard to attack that kind of returns if you are not really really good player (and I mean world class). The cap between 2300 and 2600 isnt´huge if you are thinking about player that isn´t comfortable with lp plocking style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiGQuL3fYZ8" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiGQuL3fYZ8

2300 vs. 2600 - really?

Yes, I've played good OX LP players.  To believe that any of them would make up for a 300 pt difference against a player with the right strategy is something I find hard to believe.  Shujar's strength is clearly is forehand - that thing is a beast.

I also checked out the match with Oliver and he must have lost almost 100 lbs! He really slimmed down. Kudos to Oliver.

Shujar won the match.  Yes, it's SP on the forehand.

I really believe that if video of this match was to show up, the strategy that Tim employed would be taken apart.   The other possibility of course is that Shujar has improved recently and is really not 2300... but his game reminds me of what I have heard about Bill Sharpe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=220IGgrgTCU&list=PL-ODi1KfS8dlbRX-bB-nj8cIAGzVCk5Km" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=220IGgrgTCU&list=PL-ODi1KfS8dlbRX-bB-nj8cIAGzVCk5Km

Yeah - when I saw that, I wondered...

 

So true! So many varieties, so hard to Play.

 

Would you agree that some Players do have an advantage just because out of the many equipment-variations they chose a setup that is exotic and therefore hard for the opponent to adjust to? (Don't get me wrong here, I admire players who master their equipment, especially if it's an uncommon rubber/blade)  

to play effectively, you should incorporate a lower spin game, as that will lessen the complications for yourself (unbelievable chop coming back off a loop created by you), and will also give more problems to the LP player, as there is less spin to use.  easier said than done

as somebody before mentioned - LPs do not create spin - they can only reverse it

i think one of the best examples i had ever seen playing vs an accomplished pushblocker was misha k vs peter c.  except the difference is peter c does not attack, so, you can wait him out.  playing against shuja is a totally different animal as his fh smash is quite lethal

:)

Regardless of the reasons that Tim lost, there really is a huge difference between a 2300 and a 2600.  It's a great win by Shuja and frankly Tim has no reason to lose to such an opponent.

I see Adam Hugh routinely destroy 2300 players by playing any style he wants to; looping thru them, blocking them down, lobbing them down, chopping them down with a LP racket, using borrowed equipment, whatever.  The skill set (or the toolbox) that a 2600 has is far better than a 2300 in each area.  May be Tim's technical fundamentals are not quite as sound as they need to be for his level?

I agree. I sincerely doubt that Tim will lose like that again, and as others have mentioned, he could have just had a bad night of sleep or indigestion the night before. I know that when I play a tournament, a good night's rest and proper nutrition is a necessity for achieving good results. Plus, a 2300 player has developed many incredible skills. No matter what level you play at (except 2750+), you really have to be on your game to beat them. 

 

To really answer your question, the ITTF has certain specifications for long pips and as long as a new rubber meets those specs it wil be approved. The same is true for inverted.

 

BTW, Shuja is a Psychiatrist.. Helps when playing with opponents minds :-D

 

Unlike me, Shuja's game is not as dependent on his long pips. He uses the pips to mix it up to get weak shots that he can put away with his crushing forehand. His forehand is his strongest weapon and the long pips are just a accessory for his game. He has gone the distance with many high rated players and it was just a matter of time until he would pull a big upset. However, the long pips on the backhand can turn into a weakness if a long pips player plays a specialist who specifically targets that side of his blade to exploit the weaknesses of such rubber. Style has lots to do with it.. I just almost went 5 games with 2650 rated Kai Zheng at the Westchester open.. He beat me easy in game 1 and I had a huge lead in game 2 and lost on deuce. Then I took game 3 and kept up with him in game 4.. With a little bit of luck, I could've had a 2:1 lead instead of trailing 1:2 and the guy is 2650.. Also took a game off Jennifer (yue) Wu in my prior match and kept the other games close. Table Tennis is a lot about styles and sometimes, those matchups work in favor of the long pips player but very often they work against us.. At the same Westchester tournament, I struggled against a 1898 rated player and only beat him in 5. The opponent (fadi) had medium pips on his backhand and a good forehand attack. He would not give me any spin and would tee off on any of my higher returns. This combined with fast, spinless serves gave me trouble. I was only able to win game 5 because I found out that his weakness was short balls into his forehand. As he tried to go for the kill quickly, he started missing once I returned short enough to his forehand so that he couldn't get under the ball.. Still, he almost had me and he was almost 300 points below me while I had a chance beating a player almost 500 points above me...

Answer to what? Your response added an element of the match that I was not responding to initially- placement. If you want a direct response then sure- unless there's a heck of a sponge, you can't really return anything other than a low-spin ball with the pips from a dead serve. But when you say "No matter where he places it" you're ignoring the most important part of a pips players arsenal. Dead or not, they can vary the pace and placement to keep you from putting the ball away every time. They will make you work for the shot as much as possible to develop a structure to the rally. 

Nothing was said about where a ball was placed in the original post I quoted. Only said you just need to serve a dead ball and put away the third the entire match. It doesn't work that way, and if it did then like I said above there would be no point in playing with long pips. There would be no defenders, no LP blockers. They'd all be obsolete because of the revolutionary dead ball serve.

I'm not downplaying the dead ball serve. It's not the ultimate answer though, variation is a better one. I don't know what you're arguing with. I'm not really arguing against anything you've said. The point is what you said above, you have to be able to read the returns. I'm not arguing that, even though you're trying to make it sound like I am. Again: The post I referred to originally put it as the ultimate answer that you can just spam over and over. I'm not saying it's a bad choice. I'm saying you can't just serve dead the whole  match and expect to put away every return. Nothing works that way in table tennis. 

Anybody who's is able to play at the 2300 level with pips must have some extraordinary skills and must have faced tons of players who thot a simple strategy can beat them…

Its a good win, Tim probably had a bad day and Shuja probably had a great day. It happens, upsets happens all the time in sports 

I am enjoying the fact that this is turning into another pips vs inverted thread!

I used to have problems too against the dead ball serve and I have practiced that with a coach and bucket loads of ball. There are a couple of things the junk rubber player can do:

- block the ball short with good placement to avoid getting killed on the next shot (works well with slow anti)

- twiddle and attack with inverted rubber

- step around and attack with the inverted on forehand; has some risks but can be effecitve

- sidewipe; works well with lp but more difficult with (slick) anti

 

If you counter the dead ball serve and place it well the opponent won't be able to kill the ball and will likely loop it giving the junk rubber player the spin he wants to work with.

+1. That's all that needs to be said about this.

P.S.: Am I the only one who finds the title of this thread disrespectful to the player who caused the upset? When Pitchford, at the time  ranked well outside of 100, beat Gao Ning, Kenta Matsudaira,  and Oh Sang Eun  - who were ranked 16, 18, and 29 -  I don't recall any threads on any TT forum titled "Gao Ning lost to an 125" ... Pitchford's wins were far bigger upset than this.

You can't seriously compare that. All pros have gone through rigorous training and have the technical ability to beat any other pros except for top 20 maybe? The analogy you are suggesting is ridiculous and quite frankly silly. 2600 is technically somewhere else than a 2300 level player. 

As far as I am concerned, I don't care about the unconventional rubber but the rather the style. If they were LP choppers, SP hitters it is still a beautiful and exciting game to watch. While with LP blocking you essentially stand there, put out your paddle and try to confuse your opponent. I admit that Shuja is not as extreme as Pushblocker and actively utilizes his FH but still, certain components of the BH-block-covering-the-table can be observed as well.