MATCH HIGHLIGHTS_ Taehyun Kim vs Kou Lei _ MLTT Week 8 (Los Angeles, CA)

Kim just was on the court as part of a doubles team, teamed up with Kwon Il-Baek. Yesterday we saw a really, really great effort from Braxton Chang in his first MLTT match ever. And he came up against Kole and he really came out swinging and played a lot of great power. But Kole was just able to borrow that power, deflect a lot of spin and speed back to his opponent. It's a very hard player to hit through. And you know, Kim is a player that's had success against Kole before in Major League. He's the season two co-MVP on the men's side, along with Satoshi Iida. The point construction was on point, with a little bit of assistance from the net. Stumped by the serve, as the push finds the net. Made his season debut did Taehyun Kim week six, but made his MLTT singles season debut week seven. Did not play for the Blasters week one in California. As he was recuperating from surgery, off a fracture to his foot. Nice short receive there. One of the areas that players really struggle with with Kole. He's a very, very deceptive reverse pendulum serve. It can be extremely difficult to read the spin and there there is the payoff from that serve. An extra indulgence of spin attached to that serve from Lay. What a great point and Kim playing with his forehand side across in front of himself on the backhand. A little bit of a C Miller-esque style backhand ball. He's targeting that out wide shot in the diagonal at Kole. Sidespin on that as it sort of came back into the body of Kole. The blocking was on display at an extremely high level for Kole. Outlasting in the cross-court exchange was Taehyun Kim. This backhand against Kole's forehand exchanging punishing shots at each other. There's the aggressive speedy forehand up the middle to neutralize Lay. The footwork seems to be in a pretty good spot for Kim off the surgery with the way he's getting to his shots. He's been applying some good pressure with the backhand but it's not where he wants to be. I think if he's playing backhand, Kole is going to have a bit of an end into the rally. Slightly easier ball. There's the forehand he's looking for and it was pretty close. Kole trying to close out this first game running into some resistance against Kim who finds and hits his target out wide. Flabbergasted by that one coming at him was Kim and it's Kole. After winning two of three games yesterday against Braxton Chang, Kole 31 in the power ranking steps up and secures the first game. In awe of the play of one of their players in Kole. Kole has proved time and time again from season one all the way through to season three that he's a player that you can just rely on to bring a different level to the table. You know he hasn't been the top player in the league but he's beaten all of the best players in the league. He was the only player in season two to record a win against Liam Pitchford. Pitchford went 14-1 in singles wins that season. Kole's already won against Koki Niwa, Chosun Min, all of these amazing players that have come to the league. You can't beat old school. Speaking of old school, El-Sayed Lashin, Kole took two of three games against him in Florida back in week seven. We'll figure that for Kole he's representing the LA Spinners but he lives in the Bay Area. Not enough time to get the racket around to meet the pace coming off the receive. Almost looked a little bit uncomfortable after that one. It would definitely take a 100% Taehyun Kim to pull off a win here. Kole is really not a player you want to come up against with any kind of ailment. Even if he is on the comeback trail and he is recovering, it's still you know you have to be able to deliver at your absolute best to pick up a win against him. Comeback trail, not only has Kole been dealing with an issue to his ankle, he's also dealt with some lingering tennis elbow. Oh man, is that going to be the point of the weekend? Oh no, it ends with Kim putting it in the net. Sensational work from both the longest rally, the most exciting rally of the week. Hands down. Psychologically painful point to lose if you're Kim. That was much less effort but more efficient. Well isn't that a sign that he had moved on from the psychological pain by quickly putting the pass behind him. Some of these shots that are left short. Kim is attacking and finding his targets. He's getting a lot of good quality with the backhand. Forehand over the table closes to within one point. Leaving too many short balls out there for Kim to punish. Prudent decision making for him in placement. Right up the central part of the court into that crossover zone. Taehyun Kim working his way all the way back as he is eye level with his opponent in game two. I saw Taehyun Kim waving over to his bench. What was he trying to communicate? I think they were offering him a timeout. It's probably a lot of the time they'll get the players to kind of signal for a timeout. If the coach calls a technically they have to take the timeout. So it's happened before in major league where the the player hasn't wanted a timeout but the coach has caught it so they've ended up losing the timeout and carrying on. So yeah most of the time it's players signaling to the other players. Giving them a chance to wave it off if they're not feeling like they need it. Kim potentially might be glad he didn't take it because he's still hanging in here and he's come back to 9-9. You know the more we've seen him finding his forehand the more points he's been able to sink. It's really about resurrecting that full table forehand game that he's known for. Oh he could play full table backhand. Game point for Kim. Pressure now mounting for Kole as he serves. Free swinging right through the middle to coax an air a forced air off of his opponent The arrival of the golden point adds to the intrigue. Oh and Ko goes for a flat forehand flick. A loose air and winning that cheap point it was Taeyoon Kim who shuts down the timeout says I don't need that I can take care of things on my own and he does willing the game away. The second round draft pick of the Portland Paddlers with MLTT and he has played all over the world for pro teams in Poland and Germany and Spain and France and Belgium Ukraine. Might I just say pretty shocking that he's the second round draft pick especially in season one because in season one he was definitely the best player in the league. Before you know before the league started it was very clear that he was the number one so pretty surprising that he was drafted second. Same could be said for a player like Benedek Ohler also a second round pick. A lot of teams passed him up it was pretty surprising but something that the revolution pretty glad about. You know what the revolution are also glad about is the fact that they have moved up to number one in the east division. They didn't even have to do anything this weekend. No that was based upon the the slice losing this week so with that the revolution grew up to first. It's great this is table tennis. A torrential downpour of forehands from last season's co-MVP willing his way to winning a rally after a dizzying display of attacking shots to serving three. It's not the first year for the LA spinners but is the first year that the franchise has been in Los Angeles coming over from Seattle. Reactionary skills not quite catching up to that diagonal that was struck by Kim Antley. Close for that big forehand doesn't make contact. Cole just getting the serve away before the clock ran down there. Kim took quite a while to get ready. Got a break. Luck finds Cole. Hit the net first and the edge and the net the combo. Combined with an error for Kim hits Cole in front by three. Sent that one flying. Contact point was way outside his body in towards his hip looking to be more in front. Big forehand work from Kim especially on the serve return just well judged unlike a lot of players that drop their racket and play the half long a little bit later he has the confidence to play that ball earlier and he can drive the ball forward more it's a little unexpected for players serving half long and he grabs on down that could be a worrying sign it actually looked like he might have rolled the other one it was the other it was the other ankle so the right ankle is the one that is coming off surgery you can see that bandaged up it wasn't the brace that he was playing with on that ankle on the right side it was the left side as he came up off the ground it was a nice half long pickup but not nice enough full power on that forehand and again Kim driving forward on the half long gives him such a good advantage going into that point you can see always wait getting thrown backwards a step backwards goes Kim in his hopes of winning this third game and LA spinners bench getting a little crowd engagement going here you like the rowdiness could see code just edging across to receive with his backhand thought he was going to go for the backhand flick but ended up pushing instead not what he was hoping for and this time goes for the short drop pressures back on the code but he does have the serve in hand he does which might give him a slight advantage i think he needs to keep the serve short if it goes half long to Kim's forehand and is not going to leave anything to chance here the help from the crowd wasn't enough to pilot Kole to closing out the third Taeyoon Kim surging late from down 10-8 takes two of three in stunning fashion just continues to get better and better on his road back to capturing those big results