From Rio to Tokyo: Li Sun "Our Secret is to Play the Simplest Shot to Its Best"

Who will be leading the Chinese national team in the next 4 years? New starts and new trends will emerge in the new Olympic cycle. We already know the official result of the Chinese National coaching team but we might also want to know the vision and targets for the coming years. "Table Tennis World", a Chinese table tennis magazine, has transcribed the recruitment speech of some of the applicants. Here is the summary of Li Sun's speech in English.

Photo: 乒乓世界

Li Sun, the coach of Wang Nan, Zhang Yining, Li Xiaoxia and Zhu Yuling, has coached numerous World champions and Olympic champions in his 21 years of coaching career and will be the national coach of the Chinese women's team in the new quad. He joined the national team when he was a young coach with not many achievements as an athlete. 21 years from then, he is now an experienced coach. He felt he is now relying more on table tennis and the team as the team has given him honor and success and he is proud to be part of the team. He is glad to see some young coaches joining the national team and  hopes to help them like the experienced coaches who had helped him in the past.


Innovation in the New Ball Era

The Chinese women were leading in the world. This causes them not willing to try new skills. Despite innovation can give the team a greater lead, team members are afraid of failing. As the change of the new ball, the spin has decreased. This implies the sport requires more on the players' physical strength while the traditional techniques are not suitable for the development of the sport. Li Sun does not think the change of the ball leads to the reform of technique, instead it is the nature of sport. Even without the change of ball, using the old 38mm ball, table tennis should have developed to this stage. The team should take this opportunity to make innovation such as play aggressive attack at any placement, and be prepared for powerful rallies. This will help the team to achieve good results in Tokyo Olympics.


Male and Female Style of Play

In terms of personality, male players are more outgoing, driving and easy to communicate with while female players are relatively introverted and passive. Coaches need to make guidance at the right moment. 

In terms of attitude, male players are more aggressive and like competitions while female players afraid of losing and do not like competitions.

In terms of physical strength, male players are more powerful and energetic, thus their style is more aggressive. Whereas female players are less powerful and  tend to play safe, so accuracy is crucial.

In terms of style, male players are more likely to look at the whole picture and play more varieties while female players play one step at a time, sometimes too utilitarian and stress on stability and rallies.

In terms of confrontation, male players are passionate and get into the game very quickly while the female players are more patient and tough but slow in getting into the game .

In terms of performance, male players usually take the initiative while the female players are passive and not willing to take risks.

Since male players and female players have different abilities and habits, the introduction of man-style for female techniques need to adjust according to the player's characteristics. Li Sun listed 3 steps to introduce the technique.


1. Female Players Think Like the Male Players

"Your understanding on the playing style determines your thoughts and your thoughts determie your actions." In order to play the man-style, female players should think beyond gender and personality and learn from the men. If one can combine the feature of the man-style and the details and persistence of the female-style, she will be the core of the team and is better than just being aggressive and powerful.


2. Enhance Ability

The quality and aggressiveness of the shots rely on the players' ability. This is the advantage of the male players. If female players wants to reach that height, they have to understand the trend of the sport and learn from the men. By having fitness training, female players can become more powerful and aggressive. When pursuing quality, the playing style should be practical and play according to the players' ability. 


3. Combining Style and Personality

Only by combining the playing style and the personality can they play the highest level of table tennis. Coaches should understand players have different characteristics and teach accordingly. For courageous players, they can develop aggressive playing style, while the intelligent players can try to take initiatives in competitions, play agilely with more varieties and for the persistent players, they can play more powerful strokes in matches.  


Discover Potential and Coaching

From Li Sun's coaching experience, discovering athletes' potential is better than telling them what to play as it helps develop athlete's characteristics.  The champions always have the qualities that ordinary players do not own. It is the matter of whether coaches discover that. He believes champions and personal specialties are hard to be created just by the coaches. It is not hard to coach champions in the Chinese national team but discovering the potential of every player and leaving no regrets in their career is what a coach should pursue.

Coaches may encounter talented athletes but when these athletes reach a certain level, coaches often coach these athletes with the same method and neglect their characteristics. This leads to athletes who suit the training model improve quickly while the others do not. It is a waste of talented athletes. Therefore, guiding athletes is important but discovering their potential is what coaches should work on.


Macro and Micro Vision

The macro understanding on table tennis is the prediction of the development of the sport. When training athletes who are likely to win champions a few years later, coaches should foresee the development of the technique in the future rather than carbon copying the training model of training the reigning champions. Coaches have to make a long-term plan and a full-year training plan and make sure athletes know the level that they need to reach in order to win champions. Athletes have to meet their goals every year. If they don't, coaches need to explain the barriers that kept them from achieving the goals.

The micro understanding is the details of the technique as it is the root of the sport. The quality of every shot determines the team's strength. Li Sun thinks that if the team only focus on a particular technique but overlook the follow up technique and the trend of the sport, then team would realize they have made no progress. Therefore, training plan should cover both the macro and micro vision. Li Sun said the secret of training a champion is to work the simplest shot to its best.

In 21 years, Li Sun has been attached with the team. His passion towards the team and table tennis will not change. Many have asked him who is the best athlete he has coached but he always feels that the next athlete might be better.


Source: 乒乓世界

This is the end of the "From Rio to Tokyo" series. I hope you like the series. Click the "From Rio to Tokyo" tab to view other articles from the series.