Sun Yingsha Survives a Scare, Qiu Dang a Different Man — Both for One Word
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In the Worlds women’s team quarterfinal, China beat Korea 3-0 to reach the semifinal. By score, an easy win. But the top player Sun Yingsha had a scare. Sun Yingsha beat Kim Na-yeong 3-2. Game scores: 11-7, 7-11, 7-11, 11-4, 11-9. Both used Hurricane on both sides. Notably, Kim Na-yeong also used Hurricane 8-20 (Hurricane 8 surface, 20# sponge). Only on the blade — by the handle — Sun Yingsha used the S968, Kim Na-yeong the W968. Of course, essentially they may be the same.
Sun Yingsha’s ability is world number one, true. But that does not mean every technique is first. At least in pure backhand duels, the first few games, Sun Yingsha fell behind. Kim Na-yeong’s backhand rip is more concise and smooth in stroke, faster, with very good direction change. Down 1-2, at the start of the fourth game Sun Yingsha was 0-3 down again. So she called a timeout. At this point, you cannot keep playing the old way. Not changing means waiting to die. Often, changing the style may mean a different way to die, but may also mean a turn for the better. After the timeout, Sun Yingsha switched to serving from the forehand side. Before, falling behind was, on one hand, from catching Kim Na-yeong’s hook serve; on the other, from giving Kim Na-yeong too many backhands — now she had to give more forehands. Kim’s forehand is not as fast or smooth. After a few more forehands, she could return to the backhand — anyway, first scatter the opponent’s focus. Indeed, the young one is still easily fooled. I have to say Kim Na-yeong’s backhand really is awesome. In the decider, down by a big margin, she chased to 8-9. During that comeback, Shasha again played too many of Kim’s backhands, and did not press forward in rallies. Fortunately, on the last point, Kim Na-yeong served and Shasha directly receive-ripped for the point. Indeed, her nerve is still extraordinary. Generally, overseas players struggle to beat Sun Yingsha even with chances, because they rarely win and lack experience — being firm yet calm at the key moment really is hard. With same-association teammates, at least from everyday sparring, they know beating you is possible. Also, Shasha really is very all-around and dares to make changes. To add: Korea’s third singles, the pretty young Park Ga-hyeon’s setup: Tomokazu Harimoto ALC, D09c on both sides.
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On the men’s side, Qiu Dang, who beat Sora Matsushima and Tomokazu Harimoto 3-0 each in the group stage, became a different person in the knockouts. He lost 1-3 to Sora Matsushima and 0-3 to Tomokazu Harimoto, causing Germany to be eliminated 1-3 by Japan, missing the final four. Qiu Dang: Viscaria custom, D09c on both sides. What happened? Simply put, not enough courage. At key moments, too conservative, unable to go all out. Once conservative, his defensive ability was not at that level. Throughout the match, you could see him evolving. Besides the linking-speed boost I mentioned before, there was also his grasp of the proportion and details of control and attack. I believe, after Fan Zhendong becomes his club teammate, his rhythm control and ball-control ability will further improve. But for now, controlling too much is actually conservative. In the match against Sora Matsushima, on some balls you could see him try to control the opponent with short play, wanting to play more delicately. But Sora Matsushima simply would not play that game — he mostly initiated with long balls, going straight into high-speed rallies. Also, on short balls to the middle-toward-forehand, Qiu Dang touched back too much, instead of poking long. In the match against Tomokazu Harimoto, he also tried some spin and rhythm variations, but some pointless forehand errors, especially in forehand-backhand transitions, were a bit baffling. Harimoto kept staring at Qiu Dang’s middle. How to understand so many basic errors at Qiu Dang’s level? I think two reasons. One: his defense is actually not good, not as natural as a shakehand backhand defense. The other: I observed that when he is decisive, his attacking linking is very sharp, but with a touch of hesitation, the middle forehand-backhand transition errs especially easily. Losing 0-3 to Harimoto, every game was actually a two-point margin. This precisely shows: he was too conservative at key moments, not aggressive enough, lacking the nerve to pull the trigger. When levels are very close, “courage” decides life and death.