Please take a second and subscribe now! I have tons more footage and will be posting it.

One of the longest careers at the top of the table tennis scene surely belongs to Vladimir Samsonov.
Since his first World Championship appearance in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1993, he remained a force to be reckoned with in any event he entered until 2021, when he qualified for the Olympic Games at age 45 but then withdrew and decided to retire from international competition. Known for his silky-smooth movements, his incredibly early anticipation and his pinpoint accuracy, Samsonov was always a pleasure to watch, at practice and in competition.
His strokes seemed to defy physics. They were so smooth that they looked almost slow, but at contact there was a massive explosion and the ball disappeared. Even watching from 10 feet away and filming it in super slow motion, I could never quite figure out how he did it. At the end of this video, I’ll add some 8x slow motion clips. Maybe some of you can figure out his magic….
In these clips, he is practicing with his team mate Viktoria Pavlovich and his doubles partner at that event, Vitaly Nekhvedovich. For many years, one of his main practice partners was the defensive player Evgeny Shchetinin - which was probably one of the reasons why it was a nightmare for any chopper to have to face Samsonov. I suppose that in his long career, he must have lost a match to a chopper at one point or another, but I've certainly never seen it.

свернуть