Kuai Man's Upset Loss and the Underrated Tibhar VS Unlimited Blade
Part 1
At the women’s team round of 32, China beat Poland 3-1. But within that match, Kuai Man suffered an upset — losing 1-3 to Natalia Bajor.
Natalia Bajor: Tibhar VS Unlimited, with K3 (presumably) on both sides.
VS Unlimited (Tibhar VS Unlimited) — a Tibhar blade named after Samsonov. It’s considered niche these days, at least in China. When it launched in 2016 it drew decent attention, and in Europe it still has plenty of players using it.
It’s a limba-faced, outer blue aramid carbon blade. The closest Butterfly equivalent structurally would be the Freitas ALC. Compared to Freitas ALC, the VS Unlimited is a bit less capable of generating topspin close to the table, but it has more punch in mid-table. When you drive through it firmly, something inside pushes back — it’s springier and more powerful than Freitas ALC in a way.
Bajor’s game is a perfect match for the blade: backhand flick/block and forehand flat loop are her strengths.
Let’s look at how Kuai Man lost. There’s a pattern I’ve noticed with Kuai Man: when she starts playing too smoothly, she sometimes doesn’t know how to play with a lead. Once an opponent figures out her weak spots and catches up, it’s hard for her to break free.
Game 1: Kuai Man wins 11-3. Effortless — her backhand topspin was devastating.
Game 2: Kuai Man loses 9-11. From this game on, Bajor found some of Kuai Man’s weaknesses. She noticed that Kuai Man’s forehand loops are easier to handle than her backhand topspin. Specifically, Kuai Man is left-handed, so her forehand diagonal to Bajor’s backhand gives Bajor the perfect angle for a flick. So Bajor started sending more balls to Kuai Man’s forehand and deliberately keeping them long. On long backspin balls, Kuai Man’s forehand tends to “lift” (swing upward) rather than “drive” (swing forward), reducing threat. That let Bajor counter-attack.
Game 3: Kuai Man loses 9-11. Basically a repeat of game 2, with Bajor adding more placement variation. Kuai Man took leads but got pegged back. Bajor’s backhand flick and forehand flat drive — straight-line hitting — can actually be more dangerous than topspin at times. Worth studying, even for recreational players.
Game 4: Kuai Man loses 13-15. Notice the progression: Kuai Man leads 4-0, then 5-2, then 7-4. The bigger the lead, the less she knew how to play.
On one hand, Bajor’s backhand serve varied the spin effectively. On the other, she kept sending long balls to Kuai Man’s middle and forehand to get that “lifting” response.
During the timeout, coach Ma Lin reminded Kuai Man to add more friction. Watching it, I was puzzled — that plays right into Bajor’s hand. Backhand flick, forehand flat drive — nothing too complicated. If Bajor played like Ito Mima with pimple-rubber fast attack, maybe adding friction would help. But she doesn’t.
Or maybe the deeper issue is that Kuai Man has never been great at looping long backspin balls. Like Lin Shidong facing Lamsfuss who pushes long to his middle — Lin tends to “lift high” on that ball too. Are many of our younger national players struggling to loop long backspin cleanly? For Moregard, Jang Woo-jin, and others, those balls are gifts. When Ma Lin was young, he’d have killed those.
Part 2
At the men’s round of 32, China swept Australia 3-0. As expected, veteran Liang Jingkun was bumped up to second singles for safety and Lin Shidong dropped to third. For Lin Shidong’s confidence, that may be an indirect blow — even against a weak Australia.
Japan’s women’s team even fielded Omote Rin (a name that’s hard to type), and Chinese Taipei sent 17-year-old Guo Guanhong. Meanwhile we were fretting about Xiang Peng not getting court time, and whether China would even win the title — because if they squeaked through, he wouldn’t get a medal.
Now for the equipment:
Australia’s Lin Wenzheng used W968 with Hurricane on both sides.
Guo Guanhong used Boll ALC with ZYRE-03 on both sides.
Japan’s Omote Rin uses Zhang Jike ALC with D05 on both sides. She says she has used Zhang Jike ALC since her second year of high school. It gives her more stability than other blades, is not too springy, and lets her express her own power.