Jan-Ove Waldner

Jan-Ove Waldner

 (3 October 1965, Two times world champion 1986 & 1997) is a Swedish 47 years old table tennis player. In the 1990s he was more recognized in China than Bill Clinton. He is known as "the Mozart of table tennis" and is a legend in his native Sweden as well as in China. In China he is known as 老瓦 Lao Wa - "Old Wa" or 常青树 Chang Qing Shu - "Evergreen".

As of 2012, Waldner has been playing international elite level table tennis for 30 years, which is unusual in the table tennis world where hand-eye coordination and quick reactions are essential factors. Some young Chinese players that he has recently played against are trained by those he played against in the 1990s, who were in turn trained by others he played against in the 1980s.

He is one of four male players in the history of table tennis to achieve a career grand slam (World Champion and World Cup winner in singles, Olympic gold medal in singles) (in 1992).

His career ended (in 2012) at the international elite level, at the age of 46 years.

Hou Yingchao Talks About The Choppers

ding song

                                     

Ding Song surprised the world with his skills several years ago, but lately we seem to have forgotten about that style of play. In this Worlds, choppers once again asserted themselves, but unfortunately the Chinese were the victims. Wang Hao's loss to Chen Weixing and Ma Lin's loss to Joo Se Hyuk were two of the biggest losses ever suffered by the Chinese. The two players left the hall quickly after the matches, and we were left with questions. Our reported asked Hou Yingchao, the only chopper on our team, to explain those losses.

hou ying chao

Reporter: Why did Ma Lin lose?
Hou: I feel that our players should have little problem playing choppers. But the team practices less against those choppers that use 
long pips on the backhand. We have very few players of that style, and their levels are not very high. The qualities of their chopping and their other techniques are less than Joo's. In our training, our partners could not generate high quality backspins and exert pressure like Joo can. However, if we stress the importance of playing against choppers and focus our training on that, our top players should have little trouble against choppers, since our players have such good forehand skills.

Reporter: What is special about Joo?
H:Joo mainly relies on his backhand skills, and the backhand creates attack opportunities for his forehand. That was how his match against Ma went: the way he scored points, and all his tactics, were based on the backhand.

R: How should we play Joo?
H: Make him move foreward and backward a lot. In other words, place the ball from far to close table,and from close table loop 
the ball to far table. Make him move continuously in and out. A chopper's footwork is such that he has trouble moving from close 
table to far away from the table, and not from far to close. Today, Ma Lin did not use this tactic much. More often he would just 
loop the ball, and not move the ball close and then loop it far.

R: When Ma Lin tried to drop short, he hit the ball into the net on several occasions. Why?
H: Ma Lin did not judge the spin correctly. Joo's spin was very strong, and beyond what Ma could control. That's why Ma netted the ball.

R: What are Chen Weixing's strengths?
H: Compared to Joo, Chen has more experience. He plays a very practical, seasoned game.

R: What are the differences among the three of you (Hou, Chen and Joo)?
H: We all have our own specialties. Our backhand techniques are different. Joo's chops are deeper and spinnier, and they pressured the opponents. Chen is a very steady chopper and seldom makes mistakes. I have more variations in my backhand spins than they. I use a different rubber than theirs, and I can create spin with my backhand rubber. Our forehands are roughly the same style, but they are better in forehand rallies and continuous attacks than I am. But I have more power and speed on my forehand attacks.

R: How large is the development space for choppers?
H: The space is very big. Among the final 8 in this Worlds, 2 are choppers, so there is great potential. We can produce great choppers if we stress such development. In our team's history, we have great choppers such as Chen Xinhua and Ding Song, and they acted as secret weapons. If we only emphasize the development of chopping techniques, the foreign choppers cannot possibly compete against us.

R: Which is the more advanced technique: defensive chopping style or attacking style?
H: Ding Song influenced a generation of players. His style is conceptually different than the old style. He has strong attacks, in contrast to the purely defensive style of the past. Now the chopping style has developed into one that can also attack via looping 
as well as defensive chopping, so there is a great deal of freedom in the choice of shots. The all-round

chen wei xing

credit by http://www.mytabletennis.net

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Handling defensive player (chopper) ,มือสับ

Here are the details:

Handling defensive player (chopper):

joo se hyuk...chopper

1.With a chopper the goal is to serve short and then do strong attack.

2.Choppers are most vulnerable in the middle. When you serve short and attack at corners chopper can take long strides to reach it but in the middle he can not move fast and is forced to take it early by chopping or blocking.

3.Sometimes change the strategy and fake attack and push it.

4.Other way to handle, push short on backhand, attack deep into forehand or

5.Push short on forehand and then attack deep into backhand. Changing sides to defend on strong attack is very difficult especially when you push on forehand and attack deep on backhand. The shoulder blades hinder the chopper from stretching beyond a point making return difficult or impossible.

6.If a chopper is successful in chopping the strong attack, push short and start again. His chop in short push will be weaker then his chop on your strong topspin. He has to rush to get the short push and would be in a motion to go near the table, your attack at that point would be more effective.

7.If he has long pips then attacking soft topspins to find a loose ball to hit harder is effective too. With long pips the spin return is as strong as the spin you send to him.

8.Varying spin from no spin to very spinny balls is crucial to keep the variations. But, when you do heavy spin, expect a heavy chop back and the vice versa.

9.Consistent heavy spin topspins are not good as this allows chopper to do consistent heavy chops making you erratic.

10.Not letting the chopper build the rhythm is crucial.

11.Sometimes pushing twice to one side and top spinning to the other side is effective. By pushing twice to one side you are setting him up to build one side memory and then making him change to opposite side.

12.When top spinning get your eye level close to the ball that way you can watch the ball better, bend your knees and lift. This will make it more consistent.

13.Lastly, if you can not topspin enough, you could at lower and medium level chop back and wait for loose ball to attack.

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