I make a deliberate exception here for a French player who is playing “only” in the french second league. He is playing the closest to what I would call the ideal defender style. He is twiddling the bat and uses all rubbers on all sides to defend and to attack. I am sure that if Joo Se Hyuk or Ruwen Filus would adopt his style they would be even better. His “motivational” behaviour is somewhat weird but if you don’t take it too seriously it can also be quite entertaining.
Strengths:
Very versatile playing style
very good backhand topspin
good backhand and very good forehand defense with long pips
consistent pushing with both rubbers on both sides
nice use of long pips on forehand to push-flip the ball and put pressure on the attacker
good footwork
good forehand topspin
Weaknesses:
sometimes having problems with tricky servers
sometimes shouting about also disturbs himself
backhand defense sometimes goes up too high. Wrist use could be improved to prevent this.
The following observations are of course my personal view and do not claim to be the “truth”!
Here comes AN Yeongeun (Korea):
Strengths:
good footwork
good consistent defending on both forehand and backhand
consistent pushing
good variety of backhand serves
good forehand topspin
Weaknesses:
generally too defensive. A bit too “old school”.
when defending with forehand she takes too much “swing” to chop. She won’t have enough time to do this against the better attackers since their topspins will be faster.
backhand defense often goes up too high.
too much pushing with the backhand covering 80 % of the table. Too often pushing the ball with backhand from the forehand side with out any need
no attacking skills on backhand shown
forehand topspin okay, but not consistent and not often enough used
backhand serves only
no twiddling of the bat
in push competitions she is “hopping” around to much without any need
Suggestions:
Should learn to attack more often and more consistently
Should learn to twiddle the bat especially when pushing so much with backhand.
Especially with backhand since attackers will rely on her always pushing the ball back from her backhand side
Should practice greater variety of serves also with forehand
should learn to chop with shorter arm strong and stronger wrist impact to save time and give higher backspin to the ball
should try to get away from “hopping” without reason and just move where it makes sense.
The following observations are of course my personal view and do not claim to be the “truth”!
Here comes Qianhong Gotsch (China):
Strengths:
good backhand serves
very good forehand smash
good footwork
choppy fore and backhand when pushing
Weaknesses:
seems to play with two sides pips in, which is disadvantageous against better players
haven’t seen a forehand topspin from her yet
forehand defense looks more “shovely” than choppy
Suggestions:
if you don’t want to use long pimples you need to be able to float back fast spinny topspins in order to keep the ball low and deceive the opponent. So practise heavy chop versus float on same kind of topspin
tabletennisdefenders 