Is Conformity of Styles Hurting the Sport of Table Tennis?

This is a topic that you may have considered subconsciously but never really discussed. Maybe when I talk about it you will notice. I spoke to a couple of players during the World Table Tennis Championships, legends of the sport, one in particular was Jorgen Persson - 1991 World Table Tennis Champion. A big topic for me with the players from past generations is what they think about the progression and changes in the sport. Here is some food for thought about 'conformity of styles'.

Is table tennis losing diversity of style and character?

As the game of table tennis continues to change and the game slows down and becomes slower and less spinny we are seeing a mass phasing out of different styles. This along with the charge led by the athletic and technically superlative Chinese National Team has led to a disturbing trend in the sport.

Traditional penhold style was phased out, short pips penhold - phased out, even modern age penhold is becoming less common in the modern era. Pimple rubber defenders are abandoning long pimples and changing to short to try and keep up with the ever changing game but defenders (outside of Japan) are becoming less common as well.

So what model are people following? Two winged offensive players - trying to focus heavily on technique and building athletic power and speed. This is not a completely bad thing but it opens up some serious problems.

When speaking with Jorgen he told me that the great Jan-Ove Waldner, the Mozart of Table Tennis, says that in this generation nobody could beat the Chinese because they were missing one key element from their game - variation. Everybody is trying to play like the Chinese players, everyone thinks to beat China they need to play like them. The trouble is - if everybody plays a similar style to China, they will likely never best them in competition.

International players are looking for the first chance to get into a power rally and once in it, they play at a constant fast pace - let's face it how is anyone ever going to beat someone like Ma Long playing like that? If you train to play in a similar fashion to Ma Long - unless you train harder and longer than him (which is bordering on insanity), then how are you going to have any advantage in a match?

Admittedly I don't watch anywhere near as much international table tennis as I used to, I used to love watching greats like Saive, Kreanga, Primorac, Korbel, Persson and Waldner out on the table - why? because they were unpredictable, they had class and scrapiness - each their own unique style different from the rest. Saive with his amazing lobbing, Kreanga with that outstanding backhand, Korbel his breathtaking inside out forehand and banana flip and of course lets not forget Persson's backhand swat and Waldner's godly dropshots and fade shots.

Ironically the backhand banana may have led to the game's unwinding. In a recent conversation with Zoran Primorac we spoke more about this and how the game has 'opened up'. We have moved away from the deftness and touch in the early stages of the rally and now players avoid short or long pushing and some event short serves. Play is focused almost entirely upon making strong third ball attacks and trying to end rallies quickly. By slowing the sport down we have inadvertently made players change their style to be even more aggressive - because playing soft or slow with a ball which reduces the effectiveness of that style - is simply no longer viable in the professional sport.

Every player had character in their game, they had signature styles. I feel like that part of the game is being distinguished as we move to larger balls, plastic material and we constantly look for perfect techniques and more athletic games. I think that, yes, perhaps we are seeing long rallies in tournaments, maybe for some people it is more entertaining, but something that was special about the sport before is fading rapidly.

There are very much two sides to this fence, some people like that the sport is becoming more athletic and that table tennis players will now and in the future hopefully be treated more like athletes and less like garage players. Yes perhaps changes in the game were necessary, perhaps they weren't avoidable, this we can never be sure about, but looking back I think a great era of the game is being lost as the sport progresses.

Very interested to hear other opinions and thoughts about this topic, please comment below or on facebook and as always feel free to email me at mhtabletennis@gmail.com