Mike mentioned today ex China world champion Xi En Ting 郗恩庭 and his playing style, when we chat about blocks by Kenda.
I managed to find a B/W short clip for 1973 WTTC men’s single final between ” The Hammer” Johnaason (because of his hard forehand) and Xi. Xi emerged as World Champ. You can find more on side panel.
Xi played my style of serve, push, chop and block with only one side of the blade, but Xi plays at a pinnacle level. So some of us (who play penholder) still use the same technique as Xi. despite the rubber has much improved and penholders have to master reverse penholder backhand to battle shakehand players (Wilson Chan from YWC for example, has a strong RPB and he didn’t play in 2015 HKISAA tourney)
Xi used a 729 rubber on DHS PF4 blade but has his own brand of tt equipment. The Xi-EnTing (former World Champion) brand has more than 10 patents for designs of table tennis blades. The company has been developing blades in China for more than 20 years, and are very popular in China.
They have a huge range of blades, most virtually unknown to the western market, hence the cheaper price tags. They offer some very unique and innovative blade technologies
Sweden is team world champ in 1973 and China won silver with the following line up: (China won gold in 1971 with 李富榮 & 莊則棟 still in the line up.
Diao Wenyuan
Li Jingguang
Liang Geliang
Xi Enting
Xu Shaofa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbsn-FtpPUc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_World_Table_Tennis_Championships
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_World_Table_Tennis_Championships
Here is the video of 1971 WTTC Team final
Li is virtually unknown at that time but beat Word Champ Ito in straight sets (Ito scored less than 10 points in both set) and 2 other Japanese world champ. He was the key player (winning 3 points in a 5-2 win over Japan).
I recommend we play different opponents in our practice to get used to different scenario at real games. Captain Mike has a good read in the game and positioning players in the line up in a game.
Men’s team final, 1971 World Table Tennis Championships, Nagoya, Japan. China wins 5-2 and reclaims the title after having missed the 1967 and 1969 championships because of the Cultural Revolution. Liang Geliang, Zhuang Zedong, Li Jingguang vs Nobuhiko Hasegawa, Shigeo Itoh, Mitsuro Kohno. Zhuang Zedong was world champion in men’s singles in 1961, 1963, 1965. Hasegawa was champion in 1967, and Itoh in 1969. Kohno would win the title in 1977.
Order of matches:
Liang Geliang vs Hasegawa (Team score 0-1)
Zhuang Zedong vs Itoh (1-1)
Li Jingguang vs Kohno (2-1)
Liang Geliang vs Itoh (3-1)
Li Jingguang vs Hasegawa (4-1)
Zhuang Zedong vs Kohno (4-2)
Li Jingguang vs Itoh (5-2)
Happy swinging and let’s go 9/20 at Lion’s Charity TT tourney