Every World Champion Has Weaknesses — Expert Analysis on Lin Gaoyuan and More
Every World Champion Has Weaknesses
This is a brand-new, technique-focused column in a Q&A format. The mystery experts answering your questions are two former national team members (both seasoned coaches) who prefer to stay anonymous.
Q: My side-cut balls feel spinless, and my wrist seems too stiff.
A: When side-cutting, mindset comes first — don’t panic. Your body needs to be completely relaxed at contact; the grip tension should be roughly one-fifth of what you’d use for an attack ball. Because your contact point is already off to the side, dodging the ball’s spin and force, there’s no need to muscle through it. What you need to do is keep the wrist flexible and accelerate through the cut — that’s how you produce a quality return.
Once you generate that acceleration, you stop absorbing the incoming spin.
Q: When I loop, my force doesn’t flow smoothly. My wrist seems too stiff.
A: Your loop has impact, yes — but it’s only the heavy contact point. It’s not heavy + top point + forward push all combined, so the quality is still a notch below. Translated: the second bounce doesn’t accelerate noticeably. The next step up is where the opponent can’t even make contact.
The real reason is almost no acceleration — a body problem. Your body and arm are disconnected: by the time you’re contacting the ball, your torso has already rotated through, leaving your arm trailing behind. The body is too fast; the arm is too slow. Your body needs to be fast, but your arm needs to be even faster, so the whole body’s power converges in one point.
With that kind of incoming ball, if your opponent knows how to counter-loop your forehand, you won’t get a second shot. But if your body and arm are synchronized and the power comes together, they can’t get a quick counter-loop off. At best they’ll block it — and then you can keep looping. Because for them to attempt a quick counter-loop, they’d have to press down on their paddle. But if your second bounce accelerates, they’ll either miss entirely or catch the edge.
Right now your torso is rotating to the left without moving forward, and your body is scattered — force isn’t concentrated. And there’s the wrist issue: you’re not bringing the wrist through.
Q: Lin Gaoyuan’s forehand power has never reached the top tier. Why?
A: Lin Gaoyuan prioritizes his backhand system. When transitioning to the forehand, his body habitually under-backswings, making the motion choppy — the paddle doesn’t quite sink into the ball, and there’s a slight elbow raise. To add power, he’d need a bigger backswing on the forehand side. But he’s a close-table fast-hands player, and if he backs off the table, new problems emerge. His speed drops, and the entire system gets disrupted.
Every world champion has weaknesses — nobody is 100% correct. The question is how to maximize your own strengths. Wang Liqin and Ma Lin’s backhand, Wang Hao’s speed, Zhang Jike’s continuity, Ma Long’s power, Xu Xin’s close-table variation, Fan Zhendong’s consistency.
Overall, Lin Gaoyuan’s game is actually very advanced. His close-table counter-topspin and re-loop are no worse than Timo Boll’s — arguably better in some respects. Of course, being close to the table means less power, just like Liu Shiwen. Both were trained from youth on close-table fast-hands play — speed through borrowed force, not big swings. Habits like that are nearly impossible to change.
If you asked him to back up a bit, his arm motion could be larger, generating more power — and that might work. But he’d lose his front-of-table speed advantage. The extra power he’d gain might not offset what he’d sacrifice. Once you reach their level, there’s no fixing it — they all know exactly where their strengths and weaknesses are. We can’t judge professional players’ choices through an amateur lens; the trade-off calculations have already been done.