What 5-6 mins of Dimitrij Ovtcharov vs An Jaehyun (2025) tells us about modern table tennis

Table tennis at the World 15-30 level is surprisingly non-strenuous 

An is World ranked 16, Ovtcharov is 29 at this point. Is that a high level? If so, why the misconception I sometimes encounter that the more advanced one gets, the more the physical strain? What is “high-level” anyway if one is not talking about something like Fan Zhendong vs Wang Chuqin? This match was 4 months ago. Look at how relaxed and sweatless they are and how short the highlight points & best / long rallies are. The highly elastic bounce produced by highly elastic rackets and tables today is responsible for this phenomenon. Add towel breaks after every 6 points, it’s a walk in the park. Both players – and many modern male table tennis players, I argue – could start a marathon immediately after 4 games and still complete it in normal time.

The inherent stability of short players mean they can neutralize giants effortlessly

An Jaehyun is 167 cm tall. Ovtcharov is 186 cm. That’s a 19 cm difference. An defeated the German giant 3-1, 42 points to 33, with 9 points to spare. Why? Experience and exploiting his height advantage. Knowing that he just has to spin low balls into the very vast backhand space around Ovtcharov’s right pocket or super-low anywhere really; these spaces and angles are a clear weakness for very tall players. If Ovtcharov still manages to attack these shots, An blocks with a simple arm extension. Standing with a line of sight that’s so optimal and with full stamina retained, he goes for strong continuous sidetop spin attacks on both sides. He knows a giant’s awkwardness in taking the ball early means a swing-and-miss is more likely than it’ll be for a 170 cm tall player for instance. To compensate for this weakness, giants must move around much more abruptly, leading to many more timing errors. Of course, shorter players have less defensive coverage on the one-step timing than taller players. However, their inherent stability in controlling the middle and dominating height-of-ball options is simply too overwhelmingly advantageous. 

WTT Highlight reels can be biased and misleading

For the third game, the video showed 4 Ovtcharov wins and only 2 An wins when An won the game. The video editor’s bias is showing. The editor also showed an equal win rate in the 4th game even though the game was won convincingly by An 11-7.