[Nguyen]

Liu Guoliang worked as commentator at team World Championships and team World Cup.

He analyzed the CNT players. You can watch it on video with english undertitle. I will write you some informations and embed the videos.



Liu Guoliang told, that Xu Xin is more a gambler, has much playfulness, likes to entertain and playing show-rallies and loses sometimes his focus (especially if he is leading high). He has always an optimistically mood and don't think so much about his match and the game. He is more like Fan Zhendong, they are playing and lookings what's going on. They don't have this meticulous attention to details like Ma Long. That is the reason why Ma Long is the No. 1! But both can still improve. Especially Fan Zhendong should learn from Ma Long, but he has a different style and he can not copy Ma Long. Personality can not be changed, it is more about key facts and basic issues.



Ma Long is completely different. He is more serious, works always hard and concerns more about things and shows big responsibilty. He is always focussed on each point and is planning everything in detail. He is thinking much, sometimes too much and he wants always perfectionism. But Ma Long is not only like a machine, his style to play is also like art - a combination of Jan-Ove Waldner and Kong Linghui. How he can read the game, analyze in split seconds situations, that is all-time top class, there he is the best of the best.



Liu Guoliang continued, that Fan Zhendong plays more like a robot, 80% always the same, a routine work like a computer program. And he don't like to change things. You know what will happen, but you have nearly no chance to do something against this machine. He is definitively like a bulldozer or even a tank.

Ma Long is very variabel, told Liu Guoliang, he has all tactics and variations and you can never know what will happen. He keeps you always busy and the match will always be unpredictable for you and you'll have no idea what to do.



Ma Long wants to have everything under control. Versus the most players, he has this control over the game. There are very few moments, he fells uncomfortable, from Europe for example versus Liam Pitchford which he don't know so good. And from Japan versus Koki Niwa, versus whom you sometimes can also not know what happens. Koki Niwa has creative inspirational moments and periods, then it is difficult to play versus him, but you have to stay focussed because he can not keep this attitude the whole match, so your chances will come. Sometimes it is more about Koki Niwa what will happen, this are reasons why players don't like so much to play versus him. But brute force players like Zhang Jike or before Wang Hao don't care about this, the do their thing and give Koki Niwa not a minimum of chance and he gives up soon.