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Ping Pong is a High Level Mental Game

Posted March. 04, 2004 23:34,   

한국어

“You say ping pong is a game involving technique, power, and agility? Not at all. Ping pong is a competition of mentality.”

This is the statement of Lee You-sung, the coach for the Korean women’s ping pong team that is participating in the 2004 World Teams Championships in Doha, Qatar.

In the case of the world’ top ranking male players, they must serve back a 2.7g ball coming at a 150 km per hr speed with a racket a little larger than the size of a palm within the blink of an eye. In that short period of time, they must judge the ball’s topspin speed as well. Since it is such a delicate game, the players’ mentality is directly reflected in the game. Once they lose their confidence or use unnecessary strength cast by greed, it invariably leads to a mark obtained by the opponent.

Coach Lee stated that “I put all my stakes on the first singles match” before the match with Singapore on March 2 which determined the move to the semifinals. Although Singapore ranks as the world’s sixth best, which is three spots lower than Korea in the teams match, they completely crushed Korea in the 2002 Pusan Asia Championship in the singles match by a score of 3-0.

During the first singles match when Lee Eun-sil (World ranking 38) lost two sets to Lee Ja-wei (World Ranking 17) and drove to 6-9 in the third set, Coach Lee instructed to “play without any sense of burden.” In the end, Lee Eun-sil turned the game around with a set score of 3-2.

On the same day, the Korean men’s team battled Austria who boasted Verner Schilager, the champion of last year’s Paris World Championship. Yoo Seung-min had a seesaw match with China’s Chen Wei-xing during the final singles game. The set score was 2-2, the situation at 1-1.

When each point was vital to victory, the judge suddenly declared Yoo Seung-min committed a foul. The judge claimed that when Yoo served the ball, his racket touched his chest first. At this point, Coach Yoo entered the field and protested loudly to the judge. After a quick resumption of the game, Yoo Seung-min claimed victory with a score of 11-6. Coach Yoo later stated that his interruption was “intended to buy Seung-min time to cool down and at the same time stimulate him.”

Ultimately, the victory of Korea was a “victory of a mentality game.”



Sung-Kyu Kim kimsk@donga.com