What Are Ma Long's Technical Weaknesses?
This is a brand-new, technique-focused column in a question-and-answer format. The mystery figures answering are two former national team members, both now veteran coaches, who would rather keep a quiet, peaceful life and a good night’s sleep than become famous. I think sharing these technical insights is quite valuable, and a good complement to this account. So the “Reaching the Summit” column was born.
(Heima-tuned KLC: an inner blade with more backhand speed and explosiveness.)
My opponent’s short game is clearly better than mine. How do I crack it? When I serve a sidespin-topspin fast ball, he pushes to a wide angle; when I serve short, he controls it and I cannot get on the offensive.
Combine two things: serve a fast, straight long ball with side-underspin to the opponent’s backhand baseline, paired with a forehand side-underspin short ball — more sidespin than underspin.
A good controller usually stands relatively close to the table on the backhand side. When you serve a fast straight long ball with side-underspin, he is forced to back up. Then pair it with a forehand side-underspin short serve, and he will struggle to control it, and the effect comes through. Because when amateurs cover a forehand ball from the backhand side, they almost always reach across flat, rarely angling in. When he lunges over, the best he can do is touch one ball back; after your serve you step back and get ready to rip a loop.
If you add a fast long ball to his backhand on top of that, he dares to stand near the table even less. These two serves untie every knot in the sequence.
When you have time, watch a lot of Ma Lin’s matches, especially from the later part of his career. Do not just watch the strokes — focus on his psychology. Think about why he played a ball the way he did. Many balls were easy to attack, so why did he deliberately not attack? His thinking differs from normal shot-selection logic. You simply cannot guess what he will play next; you are passively dragged along by his train of thought.
Does Ma Long have any technical weaknesses?
Ma Long carries shades of Ma Lin. His traits: good continuity, good control, a strong ability to get on the offensive. His shortcomings: he demands excellent footwork, and power is a weak point.
He has almost no holes. But as he ages, the holes start to show, and like Ma Lin he fears being pressed on the backhand then moved to the forehand.
(Heima’s aside: the key to “press the backhand, then move to the forehand” is to manipulate the opponent’s center of gravity, pressing it to one side, then suddenly switching direction.)
This shot is the deadliest, because Ma Long’s backhand power is relatively weak, so he pivots to play forehand again and again, with a hint of penhold flavor. When Fan Zhendong faces him, he often presses Ma Long’s backhand and then hammers the forehand.
I make a lot of errors looping underspin on the backhand — I can only lightly hang one ball then flick.
You have to grip the ball with your body’s center of gravity. Drive with the body’s center, brace against the ball, and your arm stays loose. Once you have braced the ball, the wrist then fires, snapping hard toward the right-front-and-up direction.
If you make a lot of errors, it must be because you keep relying on your arm to power through and brace the ball. Once you fire with the arm, you cannot add any more speed, so you cannot cancel out the incoming spin, and you keep netting it.
If a loop sounds like it has a hitting thwack, that means it is right. If you hear no sound on the loop, you are brushing too thin, so the ball goes over with only spin and no speed or power — a slow, high hang. That is easy for the opponent to smash, and easy for you to whiff on.
Take two players and pick one for the provincial team: one brushes thin and gets the ball over the table; the other relies on hitting and lands it inconsistently. The provincial team will always pick the hitter. Because the thin-brushing player, even though he can land the ball and spin it heavily, has no power on the ball. If you ask him to change to hit-first-then-brush, he immediately cannot play at all — too much has to change. First, psychologically it is a hard hurdle: knowing the incoming underspin is extremely heavy, you have to force yourself to hit up into it, and that is mentally tough. Second, technically, the heavier-spin, less-powerful ball is very slow; nowadays even a ripped loop can be counter-looped, let alone your little slow hang. A slow, spinny incoming ball terrifies amateurs, but professionals love it — they just press the ball with their center of gravity, fire the whole body, and hit it back with even higher quality.
On technique, note this: when you lift underspin on the backhand, do it on the late rising phase. First, you can borrow the pace; second, the spin has not fully come out yet, so a slightly faster ball is no problem.