Career of William Henzell

Peter Habich Asked 11 years ago

Hi,

Although I am living in Germany I am more interested in the achievement and development of William Henzell as I do for Timo Boll. I also registered to his ttedge website and I think PingSkills and ttedge fit together very well. What I did not find on your site I find on Henzell's and vice versa. I hope you unite one day.

Here my question: How do you estimate Henzell's future career. Could you say anything about his weak and strong sites. Where should he work on?

Regards

Peter

Jeff Plumb Answered 11 years ago

Hi Peter,

It's great to see you having a keen intereest in Australian players. William Henzell is possibly the best player Australia has ever had. The interesting thing about William is that most of his development and improvement has come from living overseas where table tennis is much more popular.

Even before the recent Olympics where he performed so well, he moved overseas for a period of time to fine tun his game.

Now William is living back in Australia, I think it will be very difficult for him to keep on improving his game from the extremely high level he has achieved. He's also no longer the youngest player either.

Henzell's strongest asset is his backhand. He takes the ball early and really takes control of the rally through his backhand topspin.

As he has spent a lot of the last 5 years back in Australia, I think his weakest point is lack of really intense competition. He's had some really strong results but also had some really close matches against the best players in the World where he just could not get over the line. Take his match against Samsonov at the London Olympics for example. To take Samsonov to a 7th game is incredible and he also led early on in that deciding set. This shows he has the game to mix it with the best in the World. There are other examples too where he has shown how good he is such as against Wang Li Qin at the Beijing Olympics. Perhaps if he'd had more intense competitions throughout that period (by living in Europe rather than Australia) he could have taken the next step? Who knows?

What I do know is that he's been the hardest working player from Australia for a long time and deserves all of his success.

← Our own weakness and strength Japanese Style Twiddle Blade Rubber →

Carlo Caloy Posted 11 years ago

Have you ever tried playing with Henzell, Jeff? Either in an official or unofficial match. Has Alois ever played him? How does your playing style differ with his?

Thanks!

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 11 years ago

Hi Carlo,

I am way too old to have played William. He is currently ranked in the top 100 in the world so he is very good.

nischay tibrewal Posted 8 years ago

So what if you are old,you are the best coach and we all love you...

Jeff Plumb from PingSkills Posted 8 years ago

I remember beating Henzell when he was only 12 years old and before he moved to Sweden. At the time I remember that he already had great touch when receiving serves. After that I only remember playing him once many years later after he had been training in Sweden for years, and he beat me in 5 sets (when it was best of 5 up to 21). The thing that always stood out for me with Henzell was his backhand. I think it is his best shot.