Werner Schlager, the Austrian folk-hero

Werner Schlager of Austria is currently rated eleventh in world table tennis, with 12,156 ranking points. His win average is 61.8%. He held the first place in June 2003 and was placed second in August 2003 and September 2003. In the last 5 years, his lowest ranking was 19 in February 2006 but he has fought back strongly in the last one year to climb to the eleventh position. He is holding the third place in Europe and is the number one player in his country. Werner Schlager was born in Austria on September 28, 1972. He started playing table tennis at the age of 6. His father and brother were top Austrian players and he learned table tennis from them. In 2003, he won the Singles World Championship in Paris when he beat Joo Se Hyuk of Korea. When he did that, he became the second Austrian to take the World Singles Championship. Earlier, Richard Miner had won the Championship way back in 1937. After that triumph, Werner Schlager was voted as the Austrian Sportsman of the Year. In the same year, China named him as the ’most popular foreign sportsman.’

In the 2003 World Championship, Schlager took risks in the earlier rounds. However, against Hyuk, he was quite circumspect. Schlager produced several outstanding topspin strokes against the superb defence of the Korean. He never gave Hyuk any chance to unleash the usual awesome forehand topspins that the Korean managed to execute if the service returns were weak. Schlager was continuously varying the tempo and changing the amount of topspin that he was imparting to the ball. The tactics worked brilliantly and Schlager emerged triumphant.

Recently, Schlager had his first venture in the coaching arena. In the ITTF training camp in Venezuela in February 2007, he was the main attraction and he advised several young players, teaching them subtle nuances of table tennis. After the training camp, Schlager commented, ”It was good: this is obviously the first time for me working from the coaching side of things and I really didn’t know what to expect.” He revealed that he is planning to start the ’Werner Schlager Table Tennis Academy’ in late 2008. ”I am looking forward to realizing this project that will target I would say seventeen to eighteen year old prospects, who have professional ambitions in table tennis,” he said. He also turned interviewer in his Venezuela visit by conducting an interview of Trent Carter of Australia, a top champion in Boomerang Throwing and also a table tennis player.

Table tennis racket makers Butterfly came out with a racket called Butterfly Schlager Carbon Proline, specially meant for strong offensive play. The blade and rubber combination that was used by Schlager was utilized to create a 5-ply racket. The racket had a thick Balsa center core. The core had two layers of Carbon on top of it. Finally Hinoki outer plies were added. Schlager personally helped with the design so that others also could play powerful topspin strokes and execute stinging blocks like him.