trans
Account   Shopping Cart Support
Home → Atlanta Olympics 1996

Olympic Table Tennis
Through The Eye Of The Video Camera

BY GARY RUDERMAN, Owner-Producer, Reflex Sports

PART 2 of 3

The matches begin....

With that hurdle taken care of, we set up our cameras to catch any early upsets in the round robin group play...and witnessed the start of a string of upsets that would shape the course of the tournament. Petr Korbel of the Czech Republic, world-ranked number 31, started his amazing run with an upset of ninth-ranked Gatien to get into the Round of 16...thus preventing Gatien from having his chance against the Chinese. Although Gatien was now out of the race, Korbel would prove to be a more than fit competitor, displaying a fierce double-wing killer-looping style far above the level he has shown previously.

Persson, who has been playing well of late, was also denied a chance to face the Chinese contingent, losing in three to a buzzsaw named Hugo Hoyama from Brazil, who had already defeated Kim Song Hui in another upset.

World #79 Hoyama's emergence from his group was really the story early in the tournament, since his countryman, Claudio Kano, Brazil's other representative in the Olympics, was killed in a tragic accident just before the start of the Olympics, leaving Hoyama to represent his country. And represent it he did, with a difficult style indeed. His three-ball attack appeared unstoppable, since he had the quickness and timing to reach short ball returns and smash winners, no matter how close to the net or heavy the spin. He gets the chance to displays this against Korbel in the Round of 16. In another group, Matsushita emerged by beating Grubba in an intensely fought down-to-the-wire third game, the kind of match that the clutch performer Grubba rarely loses to a defender. Yet still one more upset occurred as Dmitri Mazunov,who had already beaten Jim Butler, overcame 14th seed Peter Karlsson to advance to the Final 16.

In the Round of 16, we wondered at the draw that placed Kim Taek Soo against Kong Linghui so early in the tournament. After all, Kim had defeated Wang Tao in the quarters at the recent Worlds in Tianjin before being disqualified because of "overly toxic glue." Kim must have had revenge in mind and Kong became the unfortunate recipient of his aggression. Kong had looked unbeatable in Tianjin, displaying an all-around perfect shakehand spinning game. We had envisioned that Kim's penhold backhand would serve as a backboard for Kong's wicked loops, as it had previously been for many European double-winged attackers, but a funny thing happened on the way to the quarters...Kim had turned his relatively passive backhand into a potent aggressive-block weapon which did not allow Kong a high percentage of winners. Kim took advantage by following up his backhand blocks with his own fierce attack. This beautifully played match did go to four games, but Kim just had all the answers against the current World Champion! In other Round of 16 matches, Liu Guoliang overwhelmed Matsushita in three straight with his precise and deadly forehand penhold smashing game and Rosskopf won in three over Patrick Chila, putting Rosskopf and Liu on a possible collision course.

We set up to videotape the start of Waldner's march to the Final, with Johnny Huang of Canada the first rung on that ladder in the Round of 16. Huang, however, had other ideas, and backed them with his potent forehand and backhand short- pips attacking game. This was a two-sided version of the flat hitting style used by Liu Guoliang in beating Waldner in Tianjin. Waldner, an artist with great touch in controlling his opponent's spin, could do little effectively against Huang, who played an almost flawless match. Although Waldner managed to win the second game, he lost the other three, and with that loss went the Swede's chance of repeating for the gold, or any medal for that matter. The king and queen of Sweden, who had seen Waldner win the only gold medal (in any sport) for Sweden in 1992, were on hand to see this disappointing loss. Primorac, another potential medal contender, also bowed out, going down quietly to Jean Michael Saive in three. At this point, Saive looked overwhelming enough to be a medalist.

Then we settled down to tape the match between the upset kings, Korbel and Hoyama, originally envisioned as the match between Persson and Gatien. Once again Hoyama seemed capable of killing anything within reach, especially short service returns. He won the first two, but in game three, Korbel dropped his service returns even shorter, if possible, and opened his attack against Hoyama. Once Hoyama started to miss a few all out smashes, he seemed to lose confidence, and Korbel picked up steam to take the last three. So much for the Hollywood ending to be and Hoyama's brief moment in the sun. Both Samsonov and Wang Tao breezed into the quarters against Mazunov and Yoo Nam Kyu. Samsonov looked especially strong, with a compact stroke and an off-the-bounce style that could match up to Wang Tao's.



Story Home

The quarter-finals



ORDER the 1996 Olympics Video DVDs Today