The final World Cup match between the two penholder loopers was not as exciting as expected. Ma Lin, the pre-tournament favorite, did not diasppoint, winning easily in 3 games over Kim Taek Soo.
Ma was in excellent shape tonight, and played with great spirits. He obviously benefited from his 30 days or so of training with the big ball. His serves tormented Kim right from the start, and he held an absolute advantage in the first 3 shots. Kim was unable to launch his step-around attacks, and Ma quickly took the first game 21-10.
In the second game, Kim improved slightly in serve returns, but Ma still showed his strong and aggressive attacks. Kim had no asnwer, and lost 13-21.
In the 3rd, Kim was looking tired and played without his usual high spirits. He was behind 1-11, 8-19, and gave up the game and match. Ma won the 3rd at 21-9.
Afterwards Ma was very emotional, and covered his face with his towel for a long time. Unable to play in the Olympics, he finally won a world title, and a start towards the grand-slam.
Click here for a photo of Ma at the tournament.
(Chung's notes: Contrary to conventional wisdom, serves are still important with the big ball, at least in this match.)
After China swept the table tennis events at the Olympics, people are saying that the current table-tennis scene is China against the world. Perhaps that will be actually put to test. The Beijing company who successfully staged the Sweden-China rematch is now planning an international Table Tennis Challenge series. The 2 teams will be China, and one representing the rest of the world, with 8 players on each team. The World team will have Waldner, Persson, Samsonov, Primorac, Karlsson, Saive, Schlager and Kim. China will have Kong, Liu Guoliang, Liu Guozheng, Wang, Ma and others. The matches will begin at the end of November this year, and finish in December of next year. There will be 16 matches, and each player will play twice. The match-ups will be determined by randow drawings. Waldner has already agreed to participate, and will sign the contract on October 15.
(Kong was rather strongly criticized in this article that appeared in the Yangzhou Evening News)
People in Yangzhou are very fond of Kong, and one felt that as soon as Kong stepped onto the court, amid the cheering and applause. But Kong had disappointed his Yangzhou fans.
The best way to repay one's fans is to play at one's best. But Kong readily raised the "white flag" in the first 2 matches. We are not saying that Kong cannot lose, but scoring only 15 points per game is not the level of an Olympic champion. Tiredness should not be an excuse; who is not tired? Who could adjust to the big ball right away? Those are not good excuses.
We may accept Kong's losses with understanding, but what Kong said afterwards gave us an uncomforatble feeling.
After losing the first match to Primorac, Kong did not show up in the post-game interview, dispppointing and confusing the reporters. After the 2nd match loss to Chiang, Kong showed up at the post-game session, but seemed very casual towards the loss. He said things like "I played better in this match", and "Now I can go home earlier".
We do not know whether Kong came here to win or to lose. If you don't want to play, you should not have come; that is your right. Once you have come, you should play seriously, and that is your basic responsibility as a professional player. Kong, you should not be like that!
I found this write-up in the BBS section of www.cttin.net.
There was a meeting held on the evening of October 14 to discuss technical issues of the 40mm ball, and Yao later gave a summary of the meeting to the press.
"We had a meeting with representatives from Double-Happiness, Nittaku, Double-Fish and Peace. At this time, these are the only manufacturers of the new ball; the other brands are re-labels of these 4 brands. We held this meeting here, because Double-Happiness is the first company to develop the big ball manufaucturing process. The purpose of the meeting is to establish the standards for the new ball. Without such standards, the balls from different companies will be very different.
"We could see that the tournament is getting more exciting to watch towards the end. Some players said that the ball feels soft. But this is normal, beacuse the weight increases by only 8%, but the volume is 16% larger. Therefore the ball must be thinner. If the same thickness were maintained, then the ball will be heavier and harder, and there is no sense in going with the bigger size. We (including committee member Kuhn) felt that (increasing thickness) will be the same as using the old ball. The new ball is slower and less spinny, and that's because the players are used to the 38mm ball. The new ball feels soft, and that is normal.
"We discussed the standards on weight and hardness and the allowable variations. Through our discussions we came up with certain acceptable tolerances. We did not make any more decisions, since this is primarily a manufacturer's meeting.
"The weight is 2.66-2.77 grams. In testing we want the average to be 2.69-2.75 gm. The bounce standard used to be 230-250 mm, and now is 240-260mm. We cannot say whose products are not good, we can only say whose is good. Double-Happiness is the best so far. We now hope that all the manufacturers have these standards to conform to".
(Chung's notes: Peace is a South Korean company. Double Happiness and Double Fish are both Chinese. Other companies, such as Stiga, Joola, etc, use OEM versions of the products from those 4 companies mentioned. If one assumes that the same celluloid material is used in making the old and the new ball, once can calculate the wall thickness difference between the two. Using the approximation weight=surface area x thickness x density, one finds that the new ball has a thickness that is 2.5% less than before. Probably the overall density of the ball, that is, weight divided by total volume, contributes to the feeling whether the ball is "soft" or "hard".)