A Battle for Supremacy

With Japan already announcing Tomokazu Harimoto’s entry for the Singles event at the postponed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, will China respond with Ma Long?

Many hope to see Ma Long, “the dragon” touted as the greatest of all time, at the upcoming Olympics. However, with his most recent match against Harimoto, I would say his candidacy may be in doubt.

No Answer

The most recent match between the top players from the two most dominant table tennis countries raised some interesting questions. The victor, Tomokazu Harimoto from Japan, simply had all the answers against his celebrated opponent. There were countless times where Harimoto completely fooled his opponent with his parallel backhands and forehand flip winners; there is no denying Harimoto played well. However, the main crux of Ma Long’s loss was simply due to himself.

Ma Long Looked Lost

The tactical serving play we saw from “the dragon during their last encounter was nonexistent. Instead of targeting Harimoto’s elbow, and half-long, Ma Long always elected to serve short to the backhand, forehand, and middle. These short serves gave Harimoto many chances to initiate the attack with his strong backhand. He no answer to Harimoto’s backhand attacks- often engaging in backhand to backhand rallies, which is Harimoto’s strength. Why was he so content with playing backhand to backhand when he was losing so many points doing so? The top Chinese player made no attempts to slow the pace down, minus in the 4th and 5th games, so he could use his forehand. His return of Harimoto’s serve always gave Harimoto the backhand to backhand rally he wanted. Ma Long seemed very lost, almost as if he’s forgotten who he’s playing.

Ma Long’s Lack of variation

In their last match, I complemented Ma Long’s boldness about pushing long to Harimoto’s middle when receiving the serve. I saw none of that this match, as he often elected to push Harimoto’s serve short, leading to a dangerous flick from either side, or he elected to attack the serve to Harimoto’s backhand, which again led to a backhand to backhand exchange that favored Harimoto. He could have tried attacking Harimoto’s forehand, risked more by turning the backhand corner to take the forehand, or even push the ball half long!

I wanted to see more down the line forehands from “the dragon”, I wanted to see more parallel backhands from Ma Long. If Ma Long had tried to attack the forehand and middle of Harimoto, it would have weakened Harimoto’s backhand considerably, but this simply did not happen.

The Clash Continues

Despite my overly harsh review, I do think Ma Long is the overall better player. He has a level consistency and versatility that, on average, Harimoto cannot compete with. Ma Long has to be wary of falling into Harimoto’s rhythm. Against anyone else in the world, Ma Long could impose his game easily, but Harimoto isn’t like that, as his speed is far greater than that of his Chinese opponent. However, if Ma Long can take Harimoto out of his speedy game, Ma Long will most certainly have the advantage during their next encounter.