Or more capable people in charge.

@@Al-ImprovEd2022 And more people enjoying :(

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

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.

Open your eyes

Cuz it was Analog. Analog was good

What do you mean?

But back then all serves were illegal, sadly.

@@user-up9hq7bn5e you are chinese, so it is programmed in you to like ma long. Don't worry about it.

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

If u dont like it just dont watch

Modern table tennis is better bruh

@@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

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

@@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

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

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

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.

Absolutely agree!!

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

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

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

@@12Trappor He was 33 yo.

Ma Long is way better though

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

​@@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.

​@@void0350ma long is just built different

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

@@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.

，

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

@@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.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p810ldhp2MrHm6c.html

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

Olympics, world championship and world cup

Boosted before every match.

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"

bbn tu GB bn n n

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

ho yes!!

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.

@@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.

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.

@@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.

@@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.

刘98年的发球就能用反面，真是天才

什么叫不会打球啊（战术后仰）

98年就反面发球了，天才

刘国梁 黑皮是颗粒，红皮是反胶吗？

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

推挡没有攻击力，相对于横拍可以进攻肯定被动。

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

@@gab5012 oh jesus I need more sleep

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

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

Liu has short pips on forehand, mean black rubber

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.