Where are the defenders?

[Morpheus]

Hello out there! Are there any new trends for defensiv players? In the german tabletennis magazine ´DTS´ I found a report about a new style of defending with long pimple rubbers!

I heard about two young chinese players (female) which had big success in a pro tour event, 13 and 15 years old. I think one of them is a defender!
I think there is a good male defender from Hongkong or Korea!?

[Nosti49]

Yes, there are some in Germany
(ok, that's not world class, but anyway):

- Thomas Schröder
- Jens Lilienthal
- Ruwen Filus

Any other young defenders from any country ?


Ciao
Norbert

[Joachim Voigt]

the "newest" style is JOO Se Hyuk, offensive on forehand and defense on backhand
I think the next step is more variable on both sides
Backhand-Spin and Forehand-Defense with enourmes Spin
lets see...

[Francis54]

There are only 7 defenders that I know in the World Top 100 : Joo, Chen Weixing, Hou Yingchao, Matsushita, Chtchetinine, Tsiokas, Syed. The Greek Gionis is N° 108. Of course that is not much, but I feel that this new style of "active" defenders will grow up in the next years.
In France, we only have Zhao Wei Guo (N° 47) as french good defender in the Top 100, the others are only foreign players.

[DerRoteSchlumpf]

Hou Yingchao defends with short pimples, that's a different style to Joo.

I mean Joo has made a big failure playing in the Chinese Super League. He will stumble down in international ranking, because the chinese players knew him better now.

I've seen some results from Chinese Super League. Joo has no chance against most of the chinese top-players. He has played well, because he was unknown, but now the surprising moment has ended.

[Joachim Voigt]

Joo has to develop his style. He must attack more with backhand and defend better with forehand. If he will manage this, he will be successfull again. He has to close his big problem in forehand against soft topspins (like Werner Schlager played in the wm-final). If he learns to attack them very strong or to play them with high risk for his competitor, he will make a very big step to Top 10. If he plays like now and plays a lot, he will loose a lot of potential.

In the 1. Bundesliga in Austria we also have only 2 defensive players.

First is Chen Zhiping from China and the second is a hungarian Adam Pattantyus. I really like watching this guys, they really "play" with the
ball and their opponents.

Where ist the old chinese defenesive tradition? Once, there were players like Chen Xinhua, Wang Hao (not the young superstar) or Ding Song.

As a young boy I've watched the game (World Championships in 1987)between Leszek Kucharski from Poland and Chen Xinhua. This was really a sensational match including the emotions by Kucharski and the acrobatic style by Chen Xinhua.

Is the defensive style dead? I do not hope so. Where are the defenders in the 1. German Bundesliga?

[Francis54]

Zitat von Andrew from Austria

In the 1. Bundesliga in Austria we also have only 2 defensive players.

First is Chen Zhiping from China and the second is a hungarian Adam Pattantyus.

I think you're talking about Chen Weixing, who is #25 in World ranking : he's also an "active" defender, who attacks with forehand. That was good for Schlager to prepare the World Championship final!

[difu]

no, chen weixing and chen zhiping is not the same.