#ITTFSmashback

[@madhavved2875]

Way better quality back then than today!

[@PORORO_ChaMLBB]

Open your eyes

[@秦頌]

Cuz it was Analog. Analog was good

[@Foto_gui]

What do you mean?

[@theunknownexplorer1944]

But back then all serves were illegal, sadly.

[@theunknownexplorer1944]

@@秦頌 you are chinese, so it is programmed in you to like ma long. Don't worry about it.

[@sunitlal4304]

One of the best matches ever. Guo was saved by his amazing service. Waldner was outstanding in whole match.

[@ZenCapitan]

Amazing service by LIU, he had a lot of tricks

[@robertrowles5450]

Many thanks for a Waldner video I’d never seen before. Even if it’s just further proof he found Liu a very tough nut to crack up to 2000. He finally found another player whose serving mastery was equal to his own. And he bottled his chance to take it to a fifth set. He visibly tightened up against someone he’d never beaten up to that point; the fault on his first service at 19-16 up only increased the pressure. Well played Liu, especially the first two sets.

[@burakdemirci6288]

Exactly the touch to net rekt his whole psychology and he lost it :/

[@seadog7448]

Waldner is an evergreen player who fought his Chinese opponents for generations, he always keeps a high form and he was 37 then playing this game with Liu Guoliang. He is quite a legend and has lot of experience and he is a formidable and respectful opponents to Chinese Team. His rarely delicate in-table technique is second to none among shake-hand-hold players.

[@12Trappor]

If this is 1998, Waldner was 32 or 33, and the reigning world champion.

[@dickn.ormous1064]

@@12TrapporAccording to Waldner himself 1998 was the worst season of his career.

[@12Trappor]

@@dickn.ormous1064 Sure, but he still wasn't 37 years old. :)

[@dickn.ormous1064]

@@12Trappor He was 33 yo.

[@ksv-w8n]

Two great players. The pinnacle of table tennis.

[@void0350]

Ma Long is way better though

[@theunknownexplorer1944]

@@void0350 I know that you are born in China, but Ma Long is not better. He is just has more power.

[@dickn.ormous1064]

​@@theunknownexplorer1944 Ma Long doesn't have more power than Waldner.Flat hitting doesn't equal power otherwisea 14 yo Harimoto wouldn't be good in that department.

[@matthewsnover8320]

​@@void0350ma long is just built different

[@YepItsSandro]

​@@void0350not way, but yeah

[@lepoldbuttersstotch]

Back in the days when no one Chooooo Choooleiii now you have Harimoto screaming louder than the crowd

[@elisabethfono]

If u dont like it just dont watch

[@gab5012]

Modern table tennis is better bruh

[@renereyes3630]

@@gab5012 nope theres literally little rallies in modern table tennis because of the new ball. The old table tennis has more rallies and much more entertaining to watch

[@gab5012]

@@renereyes3630 The new ball means a big spin and speed loss and you say that lowers them amount of rallies? Bull crap.

[@renereyes3630]

@@gab5012 yes with the new technique. you're probably new to table tennis if u loop the ball or attack the ball slowly the opponent can easily flat drive the ball that's why theres little rallies in todays game

[@syzygy6769]

Two of the most intelligent table tennis players ever. China uses Liu's intelligence to produce a dominant dynasty while Waldner enjoyed a long glorious personal career.

[@imemine246]

Not only intelegince. Big deal were Liu's rubbers. Prohibited later, no?

[@wenjieyang5568]

@@imemine246 When you cannot beat Chinese players, then change the rules with the hope to beat them, but Chinese players can still figure out a way to dominate the game.

[@haihuawang416]

，

[@syzygy6769]

@@imemine246 Don't blame or credit any equipment which is legal and available to all.

[@benlomondbne]

@@syzygy6769 Don't take the last bit of fun away from a loser mate.

[@luisdelacruz1471]

When cameras had better quality

[@Al-ImprovEd2022]

Or more capable people in charge.

[@luisdelacruz1471]

@@Al-ImprovEd2022 And more people enjoying :(

[@venkataragavanchandrasekar7409]

​@@luisdelacruz1471 The angles, though? Cameras panned to the players like crazy for nearly 50% of the match!

[@dickn.ormous1064]

Golden era of table tennis.After table tennis became an Olympic Sport National Associations got decent funding and table tennis flourished in Europe/Korea which elevated the game to new heights.

[@hankesummer1991]

No waiting, just served and play. No choole, just shot with cool face. I really like this old match, it still makes me exciting.

[@BDBD05]

Absolutely agree!!

[@kwokalex2392]

The film quality and shooting angle of that era better than now. Will ITTF be ashamed?

[@elitefamilyparkour]

Back then there was bigger coverage of TT on tv all over the world so there was also probably more money involved. I've not seen any TV station showing table tennis in Germany for at least the last 15 years.

[@charlieh9894]

2:16 LIU Guoliang's reverse penhold forehand serve lol

[@gab5012]

That was effective because he could hide the whole thing behind his body so you can't tell whether he used inverted or pimple rubber to serve. But serves have been nerfed

[@myself6745]

​@@gab5012even with the nerf It is still effective

[@PhiBrian]

43:04 Never heard the public complaining about net balls before.

[@wernermosquera2601]

How nice it is to win with all the public against

[@carlosaravena9607]

Thanks for the video..I saw this macth before but the quality of the video is amazing!, thanks

[@leostamp9190]

You really had to have good technique with old ball. More spin,much more spin orientated rallies,rather than the belting it as hard as you can nowadays...just couldn’t get away with it in those days. Waldner was just Mr Spin. He could read it and deliver it!!! Legend. Cool legend!!!!

[@faretheewell3711]

So much more interesting to watch. Today's game is becoming tough to watch especially with the side camera angle WTT does!

[@HappyHouseIdeas]

I love the sound of waldner's bat and rubber explodes in every top spin he makes

[@imemine246]

What a match! Two giants of the game.

[@rtwerda1]

i enjoyed it a lot watching the 2 techniques of play and great that games were till 21 ... i kind of miss it

[@chocochan9625]

Dam, I think Liu Guoliang is my new favorite player.

[@michaelp9061]

Greatness from two of the brightest stars in ping pong.

[@alexchan887]

This is two gods playing table tennis

[@giorgione96]

Any more Waldner matches like that would be nice!Thank you!

[@arnehammarlind4420]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/p5ink6huqMmWodU

[@eventtenismeja7989]

this angle shot better than recent ITTF vid

[@djohnsonli3496]

This historical match was so marvelous that both players were playing so fatastic ever and ,above all, Liu Guoliang can unbelievably play even more skillful and courageous to get the miraculous final 5 points of the 4th game and won the match by 3 to 1 in the long run....

[@mrhdebater1607]

In 1998 Sweden's GDP per capita was $19.7k, China was $829. While Waldner certainly had all the advantages of living in a smaller country of just 8 million that was more developed with better facilities for sports, Liu relied on whatever table tennis tables and balls he could use and just practiced and practiced. Waldner retired and ended his career with 1 Gold and 1 Silver Olympic medals as well as 6 Gold medals from world championships (Team and Singles). Liu retired with 2 Gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze in Olympic games as well as 7 Gold medals from world championships (Team and Singles). He went on to become a manager for China at 27 to help China win gold medals at every Olympic from 2008 to 2020, as well as every men's singles teams championship in the World TT championships from 2001 to 2018. Liu Guoliang was so good, that the TT federation have been changing the rules to slow China without any success.

[@kayapolori8779]

Never seen walder loses his 5 serves. Unbelivable

[@JohnSmith-of4vh]

I agree he was in the driving seat in the last game but seemed to lose his composure at a vital moment.

[@danfors1333]

@@dickn.ormous1064 He struggled with his old man back rather than with mentality.

[@Nightmareman3]

@@JohnSmith-of4vh Yes , he ate a peanut butter sandwich....with Extra peanut butter.

[@primebore]

@@dickn.ormous1064 He never turned it around for Ma. Sure he beat him in 2004 but that was a one-off. Ma wasn't mentally prepared and was still 3-4 years from his peak. The overall head-to-head still favours Ma significantly and Waldner admitted this in an interview.

[@donluna2000]

One of the reasons ittf made the ball bigger was 1) slow it down for longer rallies and 2) make it visible to the audience. But this is proof that people were more interested in table tennis back then. Tournaments today have fewer live audience.

[@MrAlexBash]

these days players tend to want to end the point as soon as possible, resulting in shorter rallies, so the ball might be slower but the rallies are definitely not longer imo

[@venkataragavanchandrasekar7409]

I disagree. For the final between Mattias Falck and Ma Long, the crowd was equally passionate. Massimo had a lovely article on this match in the ITTF website.

[@Waingro808]

Agreed. We don't have crowds like this anymore and the game is even faster despite ITTF trying to slow it down.

[@syzygy6769]

If Europe had another superstar like Waldner, you can bet there would be large and enthusiastic crowds in Europe again. These days, it's the Chinese fans who watch and cheer live all over the world. As well, more fans get their fixes via videos these days.

[@mironberlin1874]

@@syzygy6769 agreed. and yet, times will pass, players will come, but this one game is to remember.

[@christofferekman8497]

Never seen Waldner hit so many backhand topspin winners before, looking like Kreanga out here!

[@sten2246]

Back in the day the 38mm ball was lightning quick and if not receiving underarm serves the spin on the serves were easy as anything to read the spin compared to the crappy 40mm ball which seems to have a mind of it's own . To say that these guys were not playing quick you obviously could not have seen them play live. I saw Stellon Bengston play Kell Johannson live, forgive their name spellings and the speed and power was awesome to say the least. Watched Jiang Jialiang i think he was 17 at the time and still can't get him out of my mind how quick he hit it and moved around. Saw Waldner, Guoliang and Linghui at Olympics plus many others and the speed that ball was moving when watched live was frighteningly quick.Watching videos of any top player from any era does not show the speed in real time so cannot be compared.

[@qomarqomarudin7307]

Two of grand slam winners .. most of respected players all time

[@lhap8481]

What is a grand slam? I mean what is count beside olympics and wttc

[@WabukiSensei]

Olympics, world championship and world cup

[@JanoTemuko]

WOW, what a match, Best players ever!!

[@vlchhakchhuak607]

waldner still remember..the cool,the best player,confident,an amazing game fr him that he gave the fans

[@thierrydekocker670]

Deux champions incroyables 😀

[@viktorforsch8744]

Such a great time in the 90s. No hands rubbing on the table after every point - thats why the have towels. Today they rub table before the match start :-D

[@kostastankovic2543]

At 8:57 you can see that Waldner rubber is ripped form blade, I really wonder if back in the day they used new rubbers for every match or with one par only :D

[@ylong5697]

Boosted before every match.

[@mironberlin1874]

I think he noticed and somewhat was paused by it. Believe it or not, I could almost feel a thought crossing his mind "do I have to change my feather every game from now on forward? How will I make my ends meet then"

[@ukraineslava]

У Лі подача особлива, а Валднер по столу грає так тонко, наче на піаніно 👍💯

[@HansPeter-tg8bq]

Please upload 2000 olympic final Waldner vs. Kong

[@chihongng2675]

bbn tu GB bn n n

[@dananghardianto5576]

The two fathers of table tennis..They were the best ..

[@kretekfilter9687]

Liu's serve is pure skill. The way he use his backhand side to serve the ball without taking any noticeable wrist movement.

[@marcoborrillo8097]

I never saw Waldner do so many backhands...

[@teelebron1702]

Sports in general was much more exciting to watch in the 90s.

[@VTI777]

Waldner BH is stronger than his FH. Thx4the upload!

[@gilekopi7296]

1:55 moment of silent waldner crowd fans

[@EmanueleCorsi]

just don't know why everyone have to complain about today's camera shooting. This video has great quality but I like better the contemporary ones, especially when it comes down to shooting angles (there is this reverse angle in which the player hides half the table, what's good in it?). Perhaps a bit of "it was better when it was worse"?

[@bioinformaticsonline5988]

Old is gold!

[@marcoloi3866]

Qualilty better then now

[@alphonsepetitboudu6552]

Match joué en France, à Paris. Dans quelle salle?

[@eduardonunez4488]

"Hey ittf, how many camera angles do you want?" Ittf: yes

[@alexanderbertisch6328]

Getting really nostalgic Even though I was in 2006

[@Mrbeat-88]

I see you've entered the "where the fuck am I" stage of the quarantine

[@kenji2787]

I seriously thought it’d become super easy win for Waldner once Liu stops getting free service points, but Liu stepped up his game in the end.

[@rfabadguitar]

so hard watching picking the ball at every point... good thing they implement the new rules.

[@ahhdodbegyd]

please keep the frame rate at 50 this is awesome

[@아약스-l6f]

Liu guoliang, my best!!!! Goat🐐 그랜드파이널스만 우승했으면 넘사 였을텐데 흑...

[@benthekeeshond545]

This is the prime Waldner and he lost 5 straight serves at the end. Liu understands his serves. The 38mm ball and the 21 points game is what TT is supposed to be. I still don't understand why TT converted to the new hybrid TT.

[@venkataragavanchandrasekar7409]

The 38mm ball had extreme spin. I started out learning TT with that (was a headache though), and while I became an intermediate player, the ball changed, and boy was I glad! The 11-point game now levels the playing field a lot, asking the champions to dig even deeper to establish their dominance. I love that.

[@benthekeeshond545]

@@venkataragavanchandrasekar7409 So! The 40mm ball TT is nevertheless the hybrid TT. Even the 40mm ball produces fewer rpms but you still have to read the spins as accurately as possible. If not, you will probably lose every service-received.

[@dickn.ormous1064]

He used some tricky short pips that didn't react much to spin,so he had more margin for error compared to Waldner who used speed glued inverted rubbers.

[@venkataragavanchandrasekar7409]

@@benthekeeshond545 I quite agree! Just that I faced difficulty when I started with the 38mm, and by the time I reached an intermediate level, the 40mm was the norm and I liked dealing with comparatively less spin.

[@mironberlin1874]

@@venkataragavanchandrasekar7409 oh no. No-no-no-no. Pick covered rocket answers to spin just as any other. Where it is weaker, is at producing spin. They say the pins produced advantage in attack, by producing faster recoil. This is where I shudder. Guoliang has to unwind spins of opponent, by means of sheer speed of cutting movement, significantly faster than that you would normally need with smooth resin, to produce faster attack. In fact he reverses entire trend to advance gain with technology, denying advances of polymers and engineering, in order to get back to something a lot more simple and yet more powerful, to get closer to recoil of plain wooden surface of the blade. But he has to pay for it a price of having to out - speed the ball rotations by means of reading and cutting the spin of opponent in ways I thought humanly impossible. Those technology advances are not an average thing to beat with plain hand.

[@ВалерияКомлева-к5к]

Молодость против опыта Лю Голян the best !!!!!!!

[@afirolarifin7630]

what SP Liu use?

[@1984kiaR]

was this before he won the single world cup or after in 1998?

[@자작시좋은글]

이 카메라 각도가 훨씬 좋네요.. 류궈량 좋아했는데..잘봤습니다

[@jonoloko8112]

Waldner is smart player all of time.

[@HJ-yg4lc]

Even 25 years ago, the video quality was still better today's WTT. The camera angle now is just rubbish...

[@DaigoParry]

12:30

[@ejsol4485]

Hey guys check out Scott vs Eric ping pong to 100-great video

[@Meurth]

what if... they changed the scoring system just so umpires would never have to say "nine eleven" anymore?

[@holagame6308]

Waldner Schwarzenegger, The T-800 Robotpong 8)

[@mariomoraga3891]

J.O. Waldner... Insane talent

[@jasondam6033]

Beautiful penhold

[@samongandroid]

I love it when Waldner loses because the whole crowd becomes quiet lol

[@haozheng5102]

这算是地球上发球最猛的两个人吗

[@swagmoney1652]

41:54

[@woopiter7259]

刘国梁的反手推挡是软肋，每每看见他一推、二推……就心里紧张，很多丢分皆于此有关，有些球比较正属于近身球稍偏反手一点点，这时要果断侧身用正手抢攻、连攻。平时要着重训练，赛时教练要及时提醒。

[@originalcolor]

推挡没有攻击力，相对于横拍可以进攻肯定被动。

[@giorgione96]

He thought he had it in the bag at 19-16.Too bad!

[@Peregrin_Tuk]

47 m of knowlege and satisfaction

[@DListening]

Camera angle is horrible. I can't see what's going on.

[@thyagtubes]

Good camera/video quality but horrendous, distracting camera direction. Not sure why they thought it was a good idea to keep switching angles every few seconds, and at times in the middle of an ongoing rally 🤦‍♂.

[@Anaishasworkofart]

TT now a days is much faster demanding and superior.

[@aunggabe]

Who will not be surprised to see Ma Long ; the GOAT is trained by Liu

[@群北林]

ワルドナーすげえ！！以上。

[@toniouverture9006]

Tokyo je vous aime tout mon ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@jasonpeng2012]

很难想象老瓦最后的发球轮竟能连输5分

[@Invisiblejung]

刘98年的发球就能用反面，真是天才

[@scottwalter3768]

什么叫不会打球啊（战术后仰）

[@Mouse8899]

Great match! But have to say the filming and editing just drove me nuts. Couldn’t follow the points and tactics clearly as it kept switching. This is not a video to compete for an Oscar!

[@ЯнаКарманова-п1з]

Понравилась красивая желтая майка игрока

[@AlbertChang17]

You can tell who won the point by how loud the clapping was

[@錐山추산]

more rallies more fans!

[@AtoOOniko]

Bring back the old rules. We are losing so much

[@HarryWizard]

I never played old 21 set rules, is it not 2-2 in sets though? why did they finish?

[@gab5012]

it finished 3-1 Lui Guoliang (watch it again)

[@HarryWizard]

@@gab5012 oh jesus I need more sleep

[@memmener]

Who invented the reverse penhold backhand?

[@marcusbrsp]

19-16 in the fourth set and Waldner, seemingly without an idea of what he wants to do, throws 5 points away on his own serve.

[@carlliu6927]

didn’t see any better quality filming, they switched among all those cameras within a point so much that so many shots were completely missed, and I could hardly tell the strategy or the placements of their shots... I like nowadays filming much better even I agree there is still room to improve..

[@sten2246]

Could never understand why they try to call ma long the goat.He never defeated any legend in a major final. To defeat Zhang Jike 4-0 in a final who was coming back from injury and was ranked about 2,027 at the time lol. is not a serious win. He wouldn't blow wind up Jikes arse when both at their peaks. This guy had to play against the all time legends on a seemingly weekly basis for generations and generations. To have the record he finished his career with is absolutely amazing in it self. Imagine the Chinese training with the soul purpose to beat this guy. Yes they did study him intensely and win occasionally but never totally dominated him, that is why he is the goat.

[@bikenthapa6753]

Well i couldnt agree more wid U, definitely waldner is the GOAT. But i feel its not jus abt LGL or Kong Linghui, its abt the vast range and the variety of world class Chinese players he faced back on those days. At the highest level he has competed against the strongest Chinese players in each era, be it Jiang Jialiang/Cai Zhenhua/Wang Tao/Kong Linghui/Liu GL/Wang Liqin/Ma Lin/Wang Hao/Ma Long having won almost all. Now China cannot be compared with any other country in the world afa Table Tennis is concerned due to the mass production of tt athletes. On the other hand i m not even sure if TT is even a popular sport as Football is widely popular in the Kingdom with a scarce population. With 38 mm ball being more receptive to spin and thus required more mental and tactical prowess, I believe it was even tougher for the Europeans back in those days to compete wid the dominant Chinese until they came with an agressive powerful backhand. The world owes a lot to greats like Waldner/Persson/Gatien/Samsonov for making the world believe that the Chinese were not competely invincible and thus keeping the Sport popular around the globe. These days its jus the Chinese winning anything and everything.

[@dickn.ormous1064]

​@@bikenthapa6753 The main problem of Europeans during the 90's was the big number of Chinese penhold players. They were unfamiliar with their game cause there wasn't any decent penhold player in Europe to practice with.Chinese shakehand players like Kong Linghui,Wang Liqin,Ma Wenge didn't have a really strong short game therefore weren't really invincible.Samsonov had a positive winning/loss score ratio against Wang Liqin and was pretty even against Kong Linghui but against Ma Lin and Wang Hao he was pretty desperate.

[@sten2246]

@@bikenthapa6753 I love the passion in your reply. You are correct in the lack of variety in the modern game today. It,s all about power ,power,power, so boring now.

[@sten2246]

@@dickn.ormous1064 Now here is a man that knows his stuff, could you please get a magic wand to transport us back to those wonderful times you talk about.

[@dickn.ormous1064]

​@@sten2246 We can only hope Harimoto will hone his skills to match the old players in touch and wizardry.He is so young but he has great skills as opposed to Fan Zhedong,the ultimate loop machine.

[@planckc1]

Thank god you can't hide the serve from the opponent anymore. When even on the highest level so many points are return errors - you know there is something wrong.

[@YiKou-s9s]

Basically why they have the new rules for servers

[@JohnWilson-dq3yi]

And details of the players bats and rubbers and why they use them

[@johnwilkinson3597]

At the time in sure he used donic rubbers could have been yasaka mk 5 though not sure a lot of Asian players back then used friendship

[@johnwilkinson3597]

Friendship was used for its dwell time qualities if you notice Asian players bats sounded like a crack on contact this was because of hard sponge with sticky rubbers

[@drleo1307]

Liu has short pips on forehand, mean black rubber

[@if-constexpr]

Liu used TSP Spinpips on the forehand side, and Stiga Mendo on his backhand. Waldner was using the Donic JO Waldner rubber on the forehand, I forgot what his backhand rubber was in the 38mm era. Waldner's blade at that time was the Donic Dicon. Liu used a cpen version of the Stiga Clipper.

[@cihuygame]

Legeend!!

[@thefly2045]

ho yes!!

[@진짜스포츠]

J.o......The second half of the fourth set should have focused on defense.

[@tepet5800]

Legend

[@behzadmaleki5400]

oh my god...i could say waldner lost the game because of those two services failed at 16-19. linguo was so lucky....

[@dante2782]

LIT

[@albertocoelhoneto5720]

The score its not visible !!!!!!

[@ruleoflaw7220]

刘国梁的发球真好

[@Invisiblejung]

98年就反面发球了，天才

[@anthonydennis8308]

刘国梁 黑皮是颗粒，红皮是反胶吗？

[@ruleoflaw7220]

@@anthonydennis8308 是的，刘国梁有时候会用红面发球，也会直板横打