World Cup Day 2: Donic Shows Its Face; Is Liang Jingkun Really Finished?
1
On the Macau World Cup’s second day, the biggest group-stage upset was this: Liang Jingkun lost 2-3 to Horacio Cifuentes. Cifuentes reached the Pan-American Cup men’s singles final four, earning a direct berth to the Macau World Cup. What is Cifuentes’s level roughly? Oh, you do not know who Cifuentes is. Well, so you roughly know his level. Actually you can still search his name on WTT’s Weibo — just that the results are he cannot beat Qiu Dang, Kanak Jha, even Yuta Tanaka and Park Gang-hyeon. So when Dapang shows a state of not beating Cifuentes, the London Worlds late next month looks not easy for our men, especially with an injured Lin Shidong who has been somewhat slumping the past half year.
In yesterday’s match, Liang Jingkun still met the “Liang full-game” basic requirement. Argentine national player Cifuentes’s bread-and-butter balls are quite nice, his movement fast, his backhand drive clearly a notch fiercer than Dapang, with strong mid-far-table counterattack too. Watching, Dapang’s loop-resistance is worse than before, and the ball quality relatively bland. Cifuentes’s blade is interesting — the Donic True Carbon Inner-energy, an inner fiber, kiri-core structure. Note, this type of blade’s main concept is still “speed-up” — keeping basic ball-holding while a transparent feel, ramping up speed as much as possible. I wrote this blade’s review before. Simply, this blade’s speed is still nice, firmer than the Harimoto SALC, with lower error-tolerance than the Harimoto SA, but easily producing a decent sense of power. Whether the Harimoto SALC, Lind Carbon, this True Carbon Inner-energy, or my Miao, these relatively easy-to-drive blades (inner fiber, kiri core) let you ramp up speed close to the table as much as possible while outputting power yourself. Because relatively linear and faithful, the stability is decent too.
2
Another Donic blade that showed its face: in Chinese Taipei’s Feng Yi-Hsin’s hand, the Donic Skachkov Carbon. Skachkov has different transliterations online, but per a past General Administration of Sport document, it is Sakashenkov. A former Russian main. Clearly the blade is obscure, but the structure is not — like the Viscaria. In feel, softer and easier to control than the Vis. But the face is on the large side, close to 159-153mm. Yesterday, Feng Yi-Hsin lost 1-3 to Felix. Previously under Butterfly, he used the Harimoto SALC. Now signed with Donic, he switched to this blade. Overall, he played decently. In traits, somewhat similar to Kawakami Ryusei whom I discussed yesterday. His loop stroke is also concise, rarely dropping the shoulder. Now this style is in fashion. But personally I feel many young players in Japan and Chinese Taipei with this speed-first style may also mean “monotonous rhythm.” On serve, Feng Yi-Hsin’s “trait” is also obvious: plaster hand. And Kawakami Ryusei — not quite plaster hand, but his serve rhythm shows some study and imitation of Wang Chuqin’s serve.
3
Another interesting match yesterday: Wen Ruibo 3-1 Stefan Uwache. Uwache reached the Africa Cup final four, earning a direct Macau World Cup berth. Otherwise you could hardly search him on WTT’s Weibo. But this Algerian player’s style is a carbon copy of Jun Mizutani, frequently backing off to lob. Sometimes he chops a few, which resembles Simon Gauzy. If there is another similarity between them, it is both use Andro gear. Uwache’s should be this one. Oh, and this afternoon Wen Ruibo’s opponent is Simon Gauzy. Then a question many players ask, to reply: normally, the Destiny Carbon launches the official-import this month. The Luma hybrid carbon is mid-year, fast after the Sports Expo, May-June. Slow, who knows.