World Junior Championships 2011

[dici]

Try to watch the second one guys ttcountenance's variation is so annoying with 2 different commentators in two different languages going on. So it's really hard to watch the game with them yelling.

I honestly have to say that this umpire is such a bad caller. I watched the services and they both do the exact same thing every time and he just calls random illegal services whenever he feels like it. He is above the table and on the sideline meaning that his perspective is the ABSOLUTE worst position to judge a service. So I gotta say shouldn't something be done about this?

It just depends on how much the horizontal distance traveled by the ball. All the time the fault got called when the ball horizontal distance exceed a limit. You can see that the umpire will not call if the ball travels like 6-9inches horizontally. But when it gets to like 1 foot and more, he calls it. But I did not pay attention to all serve, so not sure if any serve that has similar horizontal travel distance didn't get a call or not.

However, I was impressed that the other umpire did not say anything. Because usually I thought that the decision should made by the umpire who at the open body side. Which you can see that the umpire only call the fault on the player who is at his left. Practically, which the player's body definitely block the umpire's view of serve.

[blahness]

Although it was Koki Niwa who won the finals, I believe that Maharu Yoshimura will go a lot further in his career than Koki. Koki's style is too much like Jun Mizutani's, too weak in power to do any damage against the likes of the top Chinese players, and not even against Boll or Samsonov. Maharu has unbelievably dangerous technique which puts huge amount of pressure on his opponents, which will truly shine when he learns to reduce the amount of unforced errors he makes.

[YosuaYosan]

Great to see Koki Niwa win

[WiWa]

Great to see Koki Niwa win

Indeed. In the Junior Circuit where almost all top players rely on speed and power, it is amazing to see the one player relying more on tactics and mental toughness prevail. I think Koki's playing style also makes him more 'durable' than his power-/speedbased fellow junior players.

[rhonis]

Congrats to koki, but how can he win? The chinese guy has much better technique. How small is he 1,50m? His knee-angle is straight, he is standing upright. You see in the strong top-spin rally's he is not getting good enough under the ball sometimes. He wins i think because he is smarter and his serv is better. Also his backhand is better.

[WiWa]

Congrats to koki, but how can he win? The chinese guy has much better technique. How small is he 1,50m? His knee-angle is straight, he is standing upright. You see in the strong top-spin rally's he is not getting good enough under the ball sometimes. He wins i think because he is smarter and his serv is better. Also his backhand is better.

His anticipation and block are very strong as well. That is a pro combination. Proven effective before by Oh Sang Eun and Samsonov. It allows a bit more passive approach to the match. And besides that, Lin has a very long swing for his FH while Koki has a short arm motion. It is not as strong, but it gives him the ability to recover faster and stay close to the table, outplacing Lin and taking over when he gets the opportunity.

[YosuaYosan]

His anticipation and block are very strong as well. That is a pro combination. Proven effective before by Oh Sang Eun and Samsonov. It allows a bit more passive approach to the match. And besides that, Lin has a very long swing for his FH while Koki has a short arm motion. It is not as strong, but it gives him the ability to recover faster and stay close to the table, outplacing Lin and taking over when he gets the opportunity.

On the other side I think he can't be number one just by blocks and good anticipation.
He need to develop killer shots too..

[WiWa]

On the other side I think he can't be number one just by blocks and good anticipation.
He need to develop killer shots too..

I think his current technique with more power as he gets a bit older could be sufficient to score direct points at world level. Especially since he is good at setting up opportunities for himself, with some good placement he needs less power. But it isn't easy indeed, I would love it if his style could make it to the world top though.

[scylla24]

His anticipation and block are very strong as well. That is a pro combination. Proven effective before by Oh Sang Eun and Samsonov. It allows a bit more passive approach to the match. And besides that, Lin has a very long swing for his FH while Koki has a short arm motion. It is not as strong, but it gives him the ability to recover faster and stay close to the table, outplacing Lin and taking over when he gets the opportunity.

haha i just thought i would point out the fact that, the two people who you said have proven the effectiveness of that particular style of play both happen to be two of the tallest top players out there.... haha

But yeah, Niwa's timing, reaction rate is out of this world. His ability to hit the ball really early and give the opponent very little reaction time is more similar to what a penhold player's playstyle should be than a shakehand player.

Overall, even than Niwa would win, I feel like Lin has the much more impressive gave, and has a far higher ceiling in terms of potential, than what Niwa currently has.

[scylla24]

Just as a side note, I see a lot of potential in Zheng Peifeng. He is one of the youngest players there, so he didn't have the best outcome. But just from watching a player play, you can often tell which ones have the talent and the potential and which ones doesn't. Just like watching Ma Long play in the world jrs. you could just tell that he was going to be impressive.

Watching Zheng Peifeng, I got the same sense. His in game decisions, his shots, and biggest of all, his touch, was really really impressive. Despite him being only 15 or younger, his game impressed me much more than Wu Jiaji, the other penholder on the Chinese team. And thats probably why he was chosen to play in the final and not Wu. I definitely think Zheng has a lot of potential to become the next great penholder after Xu Xin, especially if he grows taller as he gets older.

[judah000]

Almost all chinese player crouch when they serve... Why do they do that?