Two huge losses for Lin Gaoyuang what will this mean?
The World Table Tennis Cup is currently being played and Lin Gaoyuang, has suffered his second loss from a winning position!
Lin, played in both the World Championship and World Cup this year and on both occasion’s he was leading vs Xu Xin and Timo Boll; 10-5 and 10-4 in the last but managed to lose.
So, what does this mean?
In every nation but China, this kind of loss would be dealt with a pat on the back and some critic as to what happened, followed by words of encouragement.
In China, it’s a different ball game!
This is seen as a huge problem and one of which has been dealt with severely in the past. Such as; (funnily enough – both left-handed, like Lin).
Chen Qi – was a remarkable player capable of beating anyone on his day but often failed under huge pressure and thus was never a first-team player, for China.
Hao Shuai- another phenomenal talent that crumbled against Michael Maze having many match points and leading 3-0. His future was never the same after that event!
Today Lin, crumbled on two big occasions, he can be forgiven against Xu Xin but I believe his first-team position has ended as of today! Losing to Timo Boll from 10-4 in the last will be the nail in his coffin. He will be in the national squad for sure but likely will never be in the first team.
Harsh Truth
This may seem harsh and many will feel it’s wrong, sideling a player after two poor performances especially as they have sacrificed their lives for the sport. But China has a strict regime that takes no prisoners and unfortunately, due to their TT dominance, they will not allow a weak leak in their set up.
Both I and David Diniz (professional coach in Portugal with his own TT academy www.ttpor.pt), spoke about this matter today and felt it’s a huge subject.
What’s your opinion on this? and do you think Lin Gaoyuang, will be given another chance to redeem himself in the future?
To view Timo Boll’s Come back against Lin Gaoyuang click here
Written by Eli Baraty
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make sense.
I think this is vastly unfair , surely is he is in the national squad , playing in big world tour events and winning them , also doing well in China qualifying they will have to select him so he still has another chance
I think you are 100% right Eli. I would be very surprised if he is given another chance. He completely crumbled under the pressure missing a string of “simple” loops.
The Chinese selectors will view this as a giant (perhaps insurmountable) mental block/weakness in his ability to perform when it matters and if they can’t trust him to close out matches they won’t take the chance on him (because they don’t need to).
As you say, they aren’t looking for a player that is “capable of beating anyone on his day”. They want a player who will consistently and reliably beat every non-Chinese player put in front of them.
Here’s the highlights video… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgZr0DxzFvA
You could very well be right Eli. However I seem to recall that the Chinese coaches view Ma Long as supremely talented but a bottler so threw all their hope into Zhang Jike (rightly so at the time). Look at Ma Long now! The Dragon! Almost unbeatable! So let’s see if Lin G can pull it back. That’s two awful losses though. I think we’ve all been there!?
Hi Simon,
The difference between Ma Long and Lin G; Ma Long was world no.1 by the age of 22 and won 8 world tour events plus many other titles by then. Yes he had bottled a few times but none like this. He lost to team members (Wang Hao) often and very rarely made other minor hick ups compared to Lin G. Furthermore more Ma was world no.1 and unbeaten at one point for over a year before he got injured and Zhang took full advantage of the open gap. Ma Long was never really second fiddle to Zhang (there head to head 31-10) look carefully at his results and you’ll note he is the only player in history that has a plus on every player he has ever played. no one has beaten Ma more times than he has beaten them! His ability was not questioned, his results spoke for themselves and he had minor hick ups for his level of ability (far greater than Lin G at 22 years of age). Lin G can not afford to make hick ups like he did, Ma was able to afford it, due to his level of play and success at the time. I feel it will be very hard for Lin to redeem himself.
I think that on the high level the mental part of the game is important as any other aspect of the game so you can understand the Chinese national team taking that kind of a performance into account.
I watch the final set and was surprised to see lin performance. From the moment it was 10-4 you could see on his face it was a different player. I was actually expected the coach to have some kind of affect but even after the time out I didn’t see any change, he kept doing the same thing, same service, same returns…
On the one hand it’s weird, on the other we all know how important the mental aspect in table tennis.
Realistically you cannot be mentally weak reaching the heights Lin Gaoyang already has climbed.
He sure has some flaws or edges to polish and you can always develop -the question to me is how hard did his coaches and he himself work on this flaw and is there light at tthe end of the tunnel or is he engulfed in a spiral of self induced pressure fueled additionally by outward expectations and fixed Performance Targets and he simply is unable to relax and exploit his Talent in his current Situation.In an Environment of Talent and recources galore you Need extraordinary pluses to make up for such a mental flaw which you might or might not be able to overcome.Is it easier to Coach better technique than correcting wrong mindsets? I think the biggest challenge really is accepting your own weaknesses and Holes in your armoury and either fillin those holes or find Workarounds that do not allow anyone to exploit those weaknesses.So in reality the question is not did he lose those two matches but did he lose the faith of his supporters who are in power in the national Team y not delivering ?
Surprisingly the current first guard in TT /China got away with their Rebellion not long ago ….which is the bigger surprise really -is China struggling to produce a new Generation of topnotch Players who can follow in the footsteps of MaLong ,Zhang Jike and Fan Zhendong is the last superboy coming from China ? One was thinking China could drop the first row with ese and still Claim all wins interntionally – maybe this is the sort of pressure the new Kids are Feeling -they Need to eapfrog their Heros instantly s the powers in Charge want to replace the rebellions as a matter of new Kids better than them?
maybe Lin loss is unforgiveable, but who will be China’s no.3 player behind Ma and Fan. There does not seem to
be any strong contender to step up, maybe Xu Xin.
But if any of those 3 are injured who else?
you can learn more from your defeats, wang hao beat ma long in 2 semi finals, the pressure was on, but he managed to win, he is young enough to come back, he should be encouraged