A Comparison of the Table Tennis Capabilities of China and Its Opponents at the 2014 World Team Championships

The Chinese research activities in the field of tactical performance analysis in table tennis are traditionally based on a diagnostic method using indices to evaluate skills in three different stages of the rally. In the light of the 2014 world championships, an analysis of strong and weak points of the best men's and women's teams was conducted by using the three-phase diagnosis. The achievements set by the Chinese national teams in the course of their struggle for the medals were compared to the skills of their direct opponents. Compared to their adversaries, the Chinese males and females demonstrated clearly superior capabilities in all three respects analysed. The only case in which non-Chinese players achieved on average acceptable ratings was the performance of the antagonists of the Chinese men's team during the open exchange of shots after stroke number four. In men's world-class table tennis the serve and receive play is presumably still of very importance for the recorded results: It is shown that the competition success of China's men might be essentially based on their highly efficient serve and third ball play. For the non-Chinese males, the core instrument for scoring seems to be their return of the service plus their second shot in the role of the receiver. In women's world-class table tennis the tactical key points can be found rather beyond serve and third ball: According to the results, the central challenge for China's ladies is to score points through their receive and their next stroke as a receiver, while the opposing females should focus more on the training of the so-called stalemate phase of the rally.