Do you know who are the top five greatest table tennis players in the world?

As the saying goes, different people have different tastes, and everyone has a Hamlet in their mind. There is no unified standard for the answer. However, when evaluating the greatness of a table tennis player, I think it is most appropriate to look at the influence and dominance and the promotion of table tennis progress. The following 5 Table tennis players can be selected. Of course, if you have different opinions, you can put them forward and we will discuss them together.

1. “Eight-armed Nezha Rong Guotuan

He is not only the best in table tennis, but also the best in China. He is the one who took off the hat of the duck egg commander from the heads of the Chinese people! Rong Guotuan, whose ancestral home is Nanping Town, Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, was born on August 10, 1937 in a poor seaman family in Hong Kong. In the winter of 1941, the Japanese invaders occupied Hong Kong, and Rong Mianzhi’s family returned to their hometown, Nanping Town, Zhuhai, Guangdong.

At the age of 7, he was fascinated by the small white celluloid ball (a hollow toy ball), and thus developed an indissoluble bond with table tennis. Although he was small and not much taller than the table tennis table, he played the ball with a natural talent and made rapid progress, and soon became the “table tennis king” of the whole school.

April 1957

In late April 1957, the Japanese table tennis team visited Hong Kong. Rong Guotuan played against the world champion Di Cun like a newborn calf, and created a big upset—he won two games in a row with scores of 21:19 and 21:13, and unexpectedly defeated the world champion amidst amazement. The news that Rong Guotuan defeated Di Cun spread throughout Hong Kong overnight, and everyone knew about it. He became a news figure.

If Rong Guotuan’s victory over Dicun was the result of his years of hard training, then his concern for the motherland and his return to the motherland were the highest level of patriotism. This is why I put him in the first place.

Year 1956

At the end of 1956, Rong Guotuan submitted an application to the Guangdong Provincial Sports Committee, requesting to serve the motherland. After a series of twists and turns, Rong Guotuan received an admission notice from the Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education. He officially became a member of the Chinese table tennis team. In terms of technology, he was known as the “Eight-armed Nezha” for his proficiency in hitting, killing, cutting, hanging, pulling, rubbing, pushing, and blocking, and his state reached the peak of his career.

In the men’s singles final on April 5, 1959, Rong Guotuan faced Sido, a Hungarian veteran who had won nine world championships. Rong Guotuan defeated Sido 3:1 and won the first world championship in Chinese sports history. This is one of the most symbolic events in Chinese sports history.

This world championship changed Rong Guotuan’s fate and changed the status of table tennis in China’s sports system. Table tennis was then regarded as the “national sport”, gradually becoming the sustenance of national sentiment and the symbol of the national sport.

He had a variety of penhold fast attack styles, especially good at serving, and was good at pushing, pulling, cutting, rubbing, forehand and backhand attacking. In the game, he used flexible and varied tactics, which was unique. In terms of technical methods, Rong Guotuan developed the traditional Chinese left-push-right attack style. Later, Guo Yuehua, Jiang Jialiang, Feng Zhe, Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin and others inherited the fine tradition of penhold and achieved good results in the World Championships and the Olympics. However, he died young due to the impact of the Cultural Revolution, which was a bit regrettable.

2. Zhuang Zedong

In 1959, he was selected for the Chinese Youth Table Tennis Team. He won the men’s singles championship in the 26th to 28th World Table Tennis Championships and was one of the main players of the Chinese men’s table tennis team in the 1960s and 1970s. In April 1971, while participating in the 31st World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan, he took the risk to make friends with American athlete Glenn Cowan, opening the door to friendship between China and the United States and starting ping-pong diplomacy.

He is the first athlete in the history of New China to win the men’s singles title at the World Table Tennis Championships for three consecutive times.

3. Waldner

Waldner is a Swedish table tennis player. He is the first person in the world to win the Grand Slam of table tennis by winning the Olympic Games. World Table Tennis Championships, World Cup and European Championships. Waldner represent the Swedish table tennis team in the World Table Tennis Championships many times. He fought against four generations of Chinese players including Cai Zhenhua, Jiang Jialiang, Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin, Wang Liqin, Wang Hao, Ma Long and Zhang Jike. He is very popular in Sweden and China, and is affectionately called “Old Waldner” by Chinese audiences. Because of his artistic and changeable playing style, he is also called “Mozart of table tennis”, “Evergreen of table tennis” and “Guerrilla Captain”.

Waldner’s technical characteristics are: good forehand awareness, mostly side-spin loops. He can pull and hit from the backhand position. And first mastered the backhand bounce loop and side-cut topspin techniques. In serving, he mainly uses forehand half-high throws to the right upper and lower spins combine. With left upper and lower spins, which is highly concealed. In receiving serves, he has rich means and many variations, and can effectively control the opponent’s high-quality hands.

Waldner integrated the Chinese fast attack style close to the table with the European mid-to-long table two-sided looping style, and constantly recombined various techniques to form a new technical style of all-round attack and defense transformation and attack and defense combination; he creatively used the “horizontal racket straight grip” serving method, and his serving technology was second to none in the world table tennis, and it also greatly promoted the improvement of the first three board techniques of European athletes. From 1989 to 1997, Waldner ranked first 19 times and always ranked among the top players. This has to be said to be a miracle.

4. Liu Guoliang

Liu Guoliang is the current chairman of the Table Tennis Association. He started learning table tennis at the age of 6, was selected for the national youth team in 1989. He was selected for the national team in 1991. During his athlete years, Liu Guoliang won the men’s singles world championship many times. Also cooperated with his teammates to win the men’s doubles world championship and mixed doubles world championship. As a main player, he won the men’s team world championship many times with his teammates. He is the first “Grand Slam” winner in the history of Chinese men’s table tennis. He has won the Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Cup singles championships .

After retiring, Liu Guoliang trained a large number of world champions such as Ma Long, Zhang Jike, and Fan Zhendong. The reason why Liu Guoliang was selected was that he won the World Table Tennis Championships team championship with Kong Linghui, Wang Tao, Ding Song and others in the 1995 World Table Tennis Championships. The Chinese table tennis team played a beautiful turnaround. Since then, Liu Guoliang has been unstoppable, winning singles championships many times and becoming China’s first table tennis Grand Slam player. In the later period, due to the reform of the International Table Tennis Federation and the restrictions on playing style, he lost some important games, but this did not affect Liu Guoliang from becoming a great table tennis player.

5. Malone

Ma Long is the first male player to win the singles titles of the Olympics, World Championships, World Cup, Asian Games, Asian Championships, Asian Cup, Tour Finals, and National Games. He is nicknamed the Hexagonal Warrior. This is unprecedented, and I don’t think it’s likely to be the case. After all, in China, the degree of domestic competition is more intense than abroad, which is an indisputable fact.

On October 25, 2009, in the men’s team competition of the Table Tennis World Cup. Ma Long won the singles match against South Korea. The Chinese team to defend the title with a 3-0 victory over South Korea. In November of the same year, at the 19th Asian Table Tennis Championships. Ma Long won the men’s singles championship and the men’s doubles gold medal with Xu Xin. Together with the men’s team championship and the mixed doubles gold medal with Li Xiaoxia. He won four gold medals alone. This is also the first Chinese quadruple champion in the Asian Championships

Rio Olympics

In the men’s singles final of the Rio Olympics. Ma Long defeated Zhang Jike 4-0 to win the men’s singles championship at the Olympics for the first time. Achieving a personal men’s singles Grand Slam and becoming the fourth Grand Slam player. In the history of Chinese men’s table tennis. He is also the first male super Grand Slam player in history to win the singles championships of the Olympics. World Championships, World Cup, Asian Games, Asian Championships, Asian Cup, Tour Finals and National Games . In last year’s Tokyo Olympics, he defeated Fan Zhendong and won the Olympic championship for the second time. This is unique in the history of table tennis. This honor is unattainable for his predecessors Kong Linghui, Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin and Wang Liqin.

In addition, the greatest table tennis players in the world include Dicun, Sido, Boll, Ocharov, etc. from abroad. Wang Hao, Ma Lin, Wang Liqin from China, and Zhang Yining, Deng Yaping, Wang Nan, etc. Due to space limitations, I will not elaborate on this. If you like, you can read my previous articles and videos.