They picked up their own ball, didn't stall at every serve, and didn't take a 30 second towel break every 6 points of the match. Even the camera angle is much better than what you see nowadays. Man, table tennis really used to be much more fun to watch.
Although i still prefer this over current table tennis ma-long, jike etc. The conditions during this particular match were horrible. A lot of sweat and humidity.
@، I agree with him. Fuck the 40+ ABS balls. I am not old enough to have played mostly with 38(Ive tried them tho. Man are they spinny) but I think 40mm post speed glue ban (many differing styles unlike today, and rallies were still much longer than 38 and speed glue) was the best period. Perhaps ITTF should experiment with either 38 or 40mm ABS balls.
You could tell that Waldner kept getting sweat balls from ma Lin , I have known players to do this on purpose, the rules state “If the conditions of play effects the outcome of the rally than it is a let” I simply show my racket to the umpire if I have a round wet spot on my racket
Ma Lin beat Ma Long 2011 Volkswagen China Open and was the champion. Ma Lin has beaten Zhang Jike a couple of times in various other smaller competitions, but he is getting older still.
Yeah but you can’t compare, ma lin in his prime has never played ma long in his prime, if we go based of statistics alone, Ma long is the GOAT, although you could argue that waldner had a bigger impact on the game or that zhang wasn’t as good for a long time but in his prime was better then anyone and so on
@@oblarski2478 bruh when waldner was playing the other players level was far closer than now. nowdays there is only 2 or 3 people that can challenge ma long or fan zendong is obvious that they always win
@@lorenzobarni1000 okay, but is that because the other people got worse compared to in Waldner’s period or just cause Ma and Fan are that much better then everyone.
rallies were so short back these days... if you can call this a rally :D can understand why no one watched table tennis :D one set now is longer than a whole 2 set game in the past xD damn the skill lvl in this game is worse than 5. league today
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SUCH BAD PLAY? HARDLY A POINT WENT TO THREE SHOTS! Thank goodness they got rid of the practice of hiding the serve behind your non-paddle arm. they missed so many returns!
Higher quality of play from the two legends.Absence of long rally is indicative of quality serves, better serve return coupled with massive variation of pace, spin, placement and length of shot for every point. Very tough to think on your feet when you are at the table trying to micro-adjust for the opponent's stroke and doing something novel with your own play.
You sir,know the game well.It's the endless variation or spins,speed,trajectory and bounce length than makes TT a difficult sport.Once two wing attackers became mainstream the magic of TT was greatly diminished.
@@dickn.ormous1064 That was the result of using a 40mm ball. Since then, TT is not genuine. It took away or minimize the speed and spin effects from TT.
They still gotten beaten by Ma Lin both of them, but if Waldner was young again, he'd beat everyone quite often, and win all the major tournaments. He'd be twice as great of a Legend as he is now.
World class players - but boring. Very short ralleys, lots of unforced errors. I think the new ball (40mm) and 11-point sets made table tennis more attraktive for the audience.
It was not suspect just was semi short close to the edge on drop so would stop waldner to have a clear chance to attack on return.Very smart and well executed serve ,too.
Which big tournament has ma lin won against ma long and Zhang jike ? It's not about winning few matches against the competition but beating everyone and winning tournaments, which ma lin hasn't done against new competition. Waldner was great for his time but bring prime waldner now and he will fade away in obscurity. Table tennis has evolved too much.
Ma Lin beat Wang Hao who certainly had more game than Ma Long.Zhang Zhike is OK but even he didn't face much opposition from his generation.The game hasn't evolve much,there's a certain lack of new talents.Even China struggles to produce new players.Ma Long stated he isn't going to retire after the Olympics.He has a broken body and a rather dated style,yet no Chinese can take his place.
What is the head2head record of the two? as far as i know, ma lin won here, in the 1999 wttc, and the 2002 japan open (which was an amazing comeback). Waldner won at the 04 olympics. Did i miss any?
@@dailyvine6710 I think you need to learn how to read. The guy was talking about head 2 head between Ma Lin and JO Waldner. Waldner beat Ma Lin at the Olympics in 2004. And he didn't even finish second. He finished 4th. Lost the bronze medal match against Wang Liqin.
@@dailyvine6710 I think that was about the only time Waldner won against Ma. But Waldner is at least a generation ahead of Ma. The more comparable h/h competition between Waldner and Jiang Jia Liang would be more suitable. He did not fare too well against Jiang either. However, Waldner did have a winning record against Chinese national players before Ma Lin/Wang Li Qin/ Wang Hao era. Consider that Waldner and his Swede compatriot, Jorgen Pearson, were about the only 2 players that challenged and win against Chinese TT. Between these 2 great Swedes, they won 3 WTTC World Championships.
