Table Tennis Profile: Joo Se-Hyuk
Joo Se-Hyuk is a professional table tennis player and has been representing South Korea at the international stage since 2001 as he has made his nation proud on many occasions. His best achievement so far was in 2003 when he reached the finals of the World
Table Tennis Championships. Hyuk was born on January 20, 1980 in Seoul, South Korea and started playing table tennis when he was 8 years old as he is widely famous for his defensive playing style.
His playing style has been his strength as Hyuk has mastered the defensive chops which his opponents find very hard to play. Hyuk’s defensive approach towards the game enables him to place the ball from a long distance with enormous spin and control which
makes it very difficult for other players to respond. He is amongst the only few players who have a defensive playing style and has been so successful in their career.
Joo uses the shake hand grip which is considered as the oldest playing style in the sport and most of the European players and about two thirds of the Asian players use this grip. He is currently the 10th top player of the World according to the
ITTF ranking as of September 2011. Joo is the second top player in Asia and the best in South Korea while a lot of players rank him as the World’s best defensive player. Despite his defensive playing style Joo has a special weapon which is his forehand top
spin loop and a major table tennis sponsor Butterfly has developed the playing blade for him.
He is amongst the few lucky players who have seen success early on in his career as he was ranked at 150th position after the splendid display of his skills at the ITTF World Championships 2001. He finished second at the 2002 Asian Games and was
the finalist at the ITTF World Championships 2003 as he met the Austrian player Werner Schlager in the final.
The South Korean was only at the start of his career when he found himself qualifying in the finals of the most prestigious table tennis event and despite his young age and less experience, Hyuk gave a tough time to Schlager. Match prolonged for six sets
and Joo tried his best to achieve the first championship success of his career but Schlager was well prepared as he never allowed him to launch his forehand topspins as the match finished: 11-9, 11-6, 6-11, 12-10, 8-11 and 12-12.
The 31-year-old has been lucky to have the best coaches as Yang Ki-Ho, Yoo Nam-Kyu and Kim Taek-Soo have guided the player through his career and he has learnt a lot from the experience of the former players. Kim Taek-Soo is a former South Korean table tennis
player as he became the Korean National coach in 2010 as Yoo Nam-Kyu is the second National Coach while Yang Ki Ho is Hyuk’s personal coach.
Joo Se-Hyuk has all what it takes to be the top player in the World as his best position so far at the ITTF International Ranking was seven and his most recent win was in Moscow when he won a bronze medal at the World Team Table Tennis Championships 2010.
China won the gold medal with Germany taking the silver medal at the Men’s event and it will be interesting to see how South Korea’s table tennis sensation performs at the coming event.
Hyuk has been working hard and will be looking to put in a brilliant performance at the upcoming table tennis mega event.
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