Schlager, schlager... No words, he won it with his play style

Strong win by Schlager, mentally robust and focused. Played smart, with extreme topspin and tempo variation.

to play such a strategic game you need high level of skill and quality technique if you have a close look at his forehand shots you might see how much spin he puts on the ball that Ma Lin cannot counter it

+Gholamreza Fathpour you're right. sorry, was referring more to his footwork. schlagers footwork isn't on par with the Asian players, but his game strategy is always smart.

wrong, schlager generates enormous spin , his forehand is insane. he had a knee injury tho , couldn't move properly

Schlager plays his game, good variation, with moderate fast to slow loops with heavy spin, both from bh and fh, great serves and returns. The more quicker player Ma Lin got a hard time controlling the heavy spin and tempo variation.

I wouldnt exclude his Servers from that necessarily tho. His fh pendulum Server doenst look that good to me either tbh. U kinda wanna get a whipping motion with ur hand instead of a big one with ur arm. It generates way more spin and speed. From looking at it He Puts his arm up way to early which makes him have to pause and wait for the ball to come down

He has one of the best techniques ? Look at his services ?

​@@davidnorman4449 his service was the best in 2003 wttc. Even the best and experienced players were bamboozled by his serves.

@@davidnorman4449 His serves didn't have to do that much with technique,his wrist was just too strong and could impact spin with very complicated follow through,the Chinese analysed his technique and came to the conclusion they just couldn't replicate it.

Actually, it's much better than the quality in the recent years...

It's because of the old ball, but mostly it's because of his long forehand stroke. I've observed most top euro players forehand lacks speed or power, maybe it's because of their stroke which is short

​@@roy1299 he used to put a lot of spin into it.

@@mindrover777 yes. There's a lot of spin. All of it was generated because of his stroke

Ma Lin wasn't particularly good in defence.

Doesn't matter that much 'cause no way Austria was going to beat China in a Team match.Hell,they couldn't even win the European Team Championship.Best of 5 versus best of 7 is different. Against Joo Se Hyuk it was different 'cause he lost their 2 previous encounters.He was known for being weak against choppers. If you suggest he was a chocker that's a myth cause his signature style was reversing matches like he did in 1999 against Waldner or 2005 against Korber,against Kreanga too.

Schlager won WTC 03 beating at least 2 chinese on his way. His best years

​@@ShamyTV5k yes the peak of his career. Even the best chopper at the time( Joe hyuk ) was beatan with ease in the final.

hmmm. I must have mis-timed whatever i was looking at.

No, I didn't mis-time anything. I now realize ML hollered in _English._

@@-danR lol i like that delayed self discussion. :D YES

Ma lin has incredible footwork, it would be too risky

​@@kioka2 Waldner did it though.

I donno, if you enjoy rallyless table tennis, wouldn't you enjoy watching baseball more?

MyNimbus2000 Now, saying that I like "rallyless" table tennis is a bit presumptuous just from what I said, isn't it? I love good rallies as much as the next guy. But games between players like Zhang and Ovtcharov could get very repetitive, basically getting down to a competition of "who has the bigger backhand". Guys like Ma and Werner, on the other hand, almost have too much weapons in their arsenals and are just that much more unpredictable.

MyNimbus2000 Now, let me pose this equally baseless question to you, if you love rallies so much, wouldn't you be more of a badminton fan?

Bo Zhang Well, MaLin and Schlager don't have MORE weapons than ZJK or Dima. Both are rather poor rally player, neither have good footwork or continuity compared to other players at their level. Table tennis is a technique based sport. As long as spin is a big element in the game and table remain small, It is never going to reach a state where the game is too mindless and physical. So emphasize athleticism would only introduce more element into the game, making it more interesting. And between badminton and baseball, Yes I'd much rather watch badminton.

MyNimbus2000 I can only say that I respectively disagree. Ma Lin uses touch-play, chop, block, side-spin block, damping block, short push, long push, drives, flicks and loops combined with drastically varied placements in most his matches regularly. I don't have the actual stats, but Zhang seems to use backhand flick to deal with most of in-table serves and tries to get into rallies as soon and as much as possible. It is a winning strategy for him and he would be stupid to do otherwise. Notice I didn't even mention the serve game. I have also heard it mentioned many times by commentators, coaches and players alike about Ma Lin's excellent footwork. Not once for Zhang. Zhang has very good coordination and leg strength for sure. And of course top-level footwork. I doubt if many people would say he has better footwork than Ma though. Neither Zhang nor Ma is known for "continuity", so I'll take your word for it. Ma Lin is known to have solid "continuous attack" ability but maybe Zhang is better. I agree with your other points. It is just that I have different preferences than you do.

おまけにカッコいいですね！

He is the last non chinesse world champion

Waldner lived a died by his fh attack,he was a great mover.The likes of Gatien,Saive,Persson were are as fast as any Chinese player.Schlager was a bh dominant player which is not the case with Waldner. Schlager could use his bh loops against the Chinese but against steady tall players like Samsonov and Persson he had no advantage which is why he never won the European Championship.

zhang jike, ma long, timo boll, xu xin, chen qi, ma lin,...etc.

Ddn't help Wang Hao much in his matches against Ma Lin.The backhand flip doesn't work so well against pure underspin/no spin serves.Players like Schlager and Jorgen Persson did have a backhand flick,the shot was first developed by Klampar.

@@dickn.ormous1064 :Fan Zhendong proves the BH flip against underspin is effective. Schlager clearly didn’t have that as an arsenal.

@@yaweli2968 Different materials.Fan Zhedong plays with polyball without speed glue.Ma Lin had the heaviest serves among the Chinese and was a spin/no spin third ball attack specialist. One of his best serves was parallel short to the forehand that totally negated the backhand flick.

so true

it was a tactical game. The air shots happened beucase both of them tried to execute their tactic/shots as fast as possibly resulting in many errors

This is high level table tennis. If you look at the top Chinese players playing today (look at the whole match, not the highlights), you will see most rallies are like this.

It's high level play, but low level entertainment...

They play to win, not to entertain. Schlager was Austria's only hope to win, he had to do everything he could.

Exactly this! This is what table tennis is about.

Both players use deception, mad spin, and unusual shots. What's not to like?

Poor guy