“Everywhere they go, the world’s best table tennis players meet strangers who believe they can hold their own against them.” No, you’re not taking even a single point from an Olympic table tennis player. “It’s cute. But it’s not true.”
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Discussion 6 comments
See also The Worst NBA Player Is Way Better Than You. As former player Brian Scalabrine (who scored about 3ppg in his NBA career) said to an opponent: "I'm closer to LeBron than you are to me”.
See also Pros Vs New York Ping Pong Hustlers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp9uIP51FmY
The last couple of paragraphs of that were surprisingly heart warming.
Man, I'm not really into sports, but have to pretend that I am to expose our kid to a broader range of life than I ever was at his age... and the Olympics this year has been full of emotive human story.
Even to my untrained eye it's been astonishing seeing the young Simone Biles (US gymnast) somehow managing to bring a confident grace as she throws herself through the most violently dynamic vaults and tumbles, landing them perfectly. Almost cannot believe your eyes. Humans are crazy.
Guess I knew but it hadn't sunk in just how life-affirming it is to see the sportsmanship, the respect shared between the winners and the losers once the dust has settled. Every kid should see it.
@neilernst:
In grad school I knew a guy who had been a nationally ranked junior tennis player, playing against Ivan Lendl and Stephan Edberg among others.
1) I ran this same "we should play sometime" thing, he said: "No - it's always we play two points and then I end up giving them a lesson." But I insisted. Two points. In both he let me hit a few volleys then struck perfect, effortless winners that were utterly untouchable by me. Then he gave me a lesson.
2) He told me about this thing tennis players have. Very competitive - they keep track of who they have "indirect" wins over. This guy once beat a guy who had beaten John McEnroe. So he had an indirect over JM. They kept tallies not just in tennis but all the other competitive things school age kids do when they hang out together a lot. Like pool, which we also played a lot of in grad school. So I have an indirect in pool over Ivan Lendl.
This is endemic even for moderate table tennis players. I'm a middle-of-the-road club player, and there is a gulf between myself and the typical garage player. And yet, a lot will question that there is even any skill in ping pong.
The issue is that competitive table tennis doesn't get much air time in the US, whereas it is taken much more seriously in Europe and Asia.
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