bin watching he zhiwen alot after finding him on the tube. I'm now a fan! lovely to watch I'm even aiming to emulate this style! be!ieve it a real challenge to the ridiculously fast spinny players using same rubbers!
His success stems from the fact that nobody studies his style anymore, leaving his opponents without experience and him, with 30 years+ of experience. The only thing that stops him from beating the chinese is 1. age 2. the fact that Liu Guoliang played pips. :[
@VANSbeingused Yeah, I understand, but i think the diversity of styles in table tennis should be preserved. It's not fun to play loopers all the time and it's not fun to watch loopers all the time. The multitude of equipment types and styles is something I love about table tennis.
there is Chinese guy in my club same age as Zhi who plays this exact style of table tennis...penhold-shortpip (block/smash). He told me back in the 70s it was a very popular style in China, who was looking for ways to counter European loopers. This is an extremely frustrating style to play against. I'm 2200 and I struggle...no matter how hard you loop off that deep forehand serve the block puts you out of position and you are forced to chop or do an awkward backhand loop that he rips..Grrrrrrrrr
@VANSbeingused Calling this style anti-tennis is a shame and insult to many people who love and appreciate the game. I do understand that for many Timo Boll fanboys and game noobs table tennis is just looping and counterlooping. Fortunately, the game is much more complex and diverse. He Zhi Wen's style is a pure joy and manifestation of skill. It is not like he is using Tenergy to spin the ball and think he is doing something special, is it? Kudos and respect for the old man.
I like HZW's style too. If I were a c-pen player I would probably play a similar style. I think I could play well enough with 802 on the FH of a heavy DHS blade. 804 is Chinese poor copy of a good Japanese or German anti. 802 and 802-40 are good SP. I play with 802 1.5mm or 802-40 1.8mm SP on the back hand. I am not sure what 802 HZW uses.
@VANSbeingused They didn't know how to play against your SP precisely because they don't train against SP. You said it yourself, your friend who plays SP has trouble finding partners. It's pretty stupid really. They're not training for every part of the game. It's like playing tennis, not training your backhand and then being upset people play you on your backhand side...
@lesliefrancs It doesn't matter who the Chinese coach is or how he used to play, they figure out people's styles, its what they do, they study and develop strategies, they don't get caught offguard more than once. They got caught offguard in 2003 by choppers, so they developed their own and now they destroy them every time.
what does anything on the amateur level have to do with HZW? And if that were the only side of the story everyone would use SP. It has very clear advantages and disadvantages.
@ChichoFicho on the amateur levels using pips to destroy someone's weak loops its not a challenge at all. year ago i had an injury and i used SP on my backhand very very successfully against higher rated loopers even against lot more experienced pips players. lot of fat guyz use 'em just for that reason
