I don’t thoughts admitting that I’m utterly fascinated with Truls Moregardh. He has had a sensational Olympics in Paris, reaching the singles remaining and serving to Sweden to the workforce remaining. He’s had a string of fantastic wins towards Wang Chuqin, Hugo Calderano, Anders Lind and Dimitri Ovtacharov. He’s the participant in type.
What fascinates me most is the sheer creativity of his desk tennis. Sure, he can do all the standard attacking strokes – the flicks, the loops, the topspin to topspin exchanges. However he has such a variety of different pictures which he recurrently makes use of – chop blocks, fades, strawberry flicks, punches, snakes, empty loops.
To make use of all these pictures, and to mix them right into a purposeful taking part in fashion on the highest stage, is so massively troublesome. In different Olympic sports activities, corresponding to gymnastics, diving or skateboarding, athletes get larger scores based mostly on the complexity of the manoeuvres they carry out. If desk tennis was scored in the same approach, Turls Moregardh can be approach out within the lead. He’d be untouchable.
The pictures Truls performs with seemingly such ease are literally very troublesome to execute constantly, even at a a lot slower tempo. To play these chop blocks, fades, sidespin pushes, empty loops towards the immense velocity and spin of different professionals, and with the stress of competing on the Olympics, is kind of astonishing.
How does he even have the psychological capability to shift by way of all his shot choices, choose the proper one, after which execute with exact timing? It’s an unbelievable ability.
Excessive danger, excessive reward
Truls’s taking part in fashion is massively excessive danger. It doesn’t at all times work. Any slight mistiming when taking part in a chop block, for instance, and the shot will go improper. It’s going to pop up too excessive, or go huge off the desk. Level misplaced. However when his disruptive pictures work, as they’ve been within the Olympics, then Truls is a nightmare to play towards.
There’s a fixed change of velocity, spin and tempo. You actually do not know what shot Truls goes to play subsequent. I’m not satisfied Truls is aware of what shot he’s going to play. However his mind processing is so quick he can seemingly pull out any variety of pictures in any state of affairs. This unpredictability makes it very laborious for his opponents to seek out any constant rhythm. The number of pictures forces opponents to hesitate, make errors or play weak pictures which Truls then punishes.
Some could really feel that Truls is messing round when he’s taking part in and he’s not taking desk tennis significantly sufficient. That he’s attempting to indicate off with all his loopy pictures. That he’s extra targeted on entertaining than profitable.
However I don’t see it this manner. He has developed the last word disruptive taking part in fashion. His creativity has a objective. And he’s good at it. And desk tennis is healthier for it. We want personalities within the sport. And Truls, together with his vary of loopy pictures, his expressions, his celebrations makes individuals wish to watch desk tennis. Not solely does he entertain, however he’s having success. In a sport which typically feels a little bit one dimensional – topspin to topspin energy play – Truls is exhibiting there may be nonetheless one other option to play and achieve success on the highest stage.
Copying Truls
Is there something we mere mortals can do to be extra like Truls, aside from purchase a STIGA Cybershape blade? Properly, let’s not faux we will play similar to Truls. All of the trickery is approach past most of us novice gamers. Simply getting our toes in the proper place is sufficient of a problem! However there may be scope so as to add a minimum of one disruptive shot into our sport, whether or not a chop block, a fade, a punch or an empty loop. Doing one thing a little bit totally different can have a disruptive impact and constructive affect on our sport.
For me, I discover an empty loop is surprisingly efficient. It is a loop which has little or no spin. It seems like topspin, however the contact is slower and never as a lot brush, so in actuality there isn’t a lot topspin in any respect. This fairly often will get blocked into the online. My opponent will examine his bat questioning what went improper.
I have to admit, this empty loop isn’t at all times intentional. I’m truly attempting to spin the ball. However I get a little bit tense and the shot goes over slower than I supposed. However it someway works. Relatively than admonish myself for my garbage loop, I now congratulate myself for enjoying like Truls!
Maybe the simplest approach for us mere mortals to play like Truls is to maintain altering the tempo of our pictures. Combine up slower pictures and sooner pictures. Take some balls earlier and a few balls later. Play pictures with extra spin and a few with much less spin.
You don’t must study any new pictures to do that. You simply use the present pictures you might have, however do them with totally different ranges of velocity, spin and timing. This fixed tempo change will be very unsettling for an opponent. If it really works, we will disrupt an opponent’s rhythm, drive our opponent to make errors or play weak balls. There’s a little bit of Truls in all of us. Let’s embrace creativity!
There are very strict copyright guidelines on sharing footage from the Olympic video games, so as an alternative here’s a compilation of a few of Truls Moregardh’s good vary of artistic pictures over the previous few years. Get pleasure from…
Need extra professional evaluation?
If you wish to extra evaluation of professional gamers, I like to recommend you be a part of Tom’s TT Academy. Along with professional participant evaluation, you’re going to get entry to a variety of teaching content material, together with
- in-depth programs
- coaching drills
- health movies
- robotic coaching movies
- member discussions
- video evaluation
- ability challenges
- teaching clinic
- and lot’s extra!
You may entry all this content material for lower than £1 per week. New content material is added recurrently. Be part of lots of of desk tennis gamers world wide at present at tomsttacademy.com
