What Are Ma Long's Technical Weaknesses?
This is a brand-new, technique-focused column in a Q-and-A format. The anonymous experts answering questions are two former national team players — both experienced coaches — who just want a quiet life and a good night’s sleep, with no interest in fame.
Sharing these technical insights feels genuinely worthwhile, and this column, “Reaching the Summit,” was born from that.
Question 1: My opponent’s short game is clearly stronger than mine. How do I break through?
He can push any of my side-top-spin serves wide; my short balls let him control the rally, so I can’t initiate. What do I do?
Answer: Combine two elements: a fast, deep straight-line serve with side-underspin to his backhand corner, paired with a forehand side-underspin short ball (heavy on side, light on under).
Players with strong control tend to stand relatively close to the table on the backhand side. When you hit that fast, deep straight-line side-underspin to their backhand, they’re forced to step back. Then follow it with a short side-underspin ball to their forehand — suddenly they struggle to control it, and the effect compounds. Most recreational players rush the forehand side in a straight line rather than at an angle, so when they charge over, the most they can do is block one ball. You’ve already stepped back ready to blast a loop.
If you also throw in the fast deep serve to their backhand, they’ll stop hugging the table altogether. Those two serves unlock every phase of the rally.
Spend some time watching Ma Lin play, especially in the later part of his career. Don’t just watch the strokes — focus on his thinking. Ask yourself why he handles each ball the way he does. His logic runs counter to the standard pattern; you genuinely can’t predict his next move, and you’re completely reactive, following his lead.
Question 2: What are Ma Long’s technical weaknesses?
Ma Long has touches of Ma Lin in him. Strengths: great consistency, strong control, ability to initiate. Weaknesses: demands very good footwork, limited raw power.
His weaknesses are almost nonexistent. But as he ages, they’ve started to surface — like Ma Lin, he struggles when you “press his backhand then switch to his forehand.”
(Author’s note: The core of this tactic is disrupting the opponent’s weight distribution — pushing their weight to one side, then suddenly switching the line.)
That switch is lethal for him because Ma Long’s backhand power is relatively modest, which leads him to side-step into his forehand constantly — almost like a penhold player. Fan Zhendong, when facing him, routinely hammers the backhand and then drops the forehand wide.
Question 3: I miss a lot on backhand loops against backspin. Help.
Answer: Try initiating the loop with your body weight. Drive through the ball using your body’s center of gravity — press it — and keep your arm relaxed. After you’ve pressed the ball, then snap the wrist and whip forward and upward to the right.
If you’re missing a lot, it’s almost certainly because you’re relying on arm power alone to press through the ball. Once your arm tenses to push, you can’t accelerate into it, and you can’t counteract the incoming spin — so the ball goes into the net.
If your loop sounds like a solid thud at contact, you’re doing it right. If you hear nothing — that’s thin brush, all spin, no pace. That ball just floats over: plenty of rotation but no speed or weight. It’s easy for the opponent to smash, and you’re prone to missing with a thin brush anyway.
Imagine choosing between two players for a provincial team: one uses thin brush and gets the ball on the table; the other uses solid contact but sometimes misses. The coaches will always pick the solid-contact player. Why? The thin-brush player, even though they make the ball, has no power — and if you try to change them to “contact first, brush second,” they immediately fall apart. First, there’s the mental block: knowing the incoming ball is heavily spun and forcing yourself to drive into it anyway is psychologically hard. Second, technically speaking, a ball that’s slow with heavy spin is the nightmare scenario — a modern power loop can be counter-looped, so imagine what happens to a slow, floaty topspin ball. It comes in slow and top-spinning, and recreational players dread it, but pros love it: they just load their body weight, drive, and the return is higher quality.
Technically, when looping backspin from the backhand side, always catch the ball on the late-rising phase. First, you can borrow pace from the ball. Second, the backspin hasn’t fully developed yet, and if you’re a touch faster, it’s manageable.