Fan Zhendong

Fan Zhendong (born 22 January 1997) is a Chinese professional table tennis player. After joining the Chinese National Table Tennis Team in 2012 as the youngest member of the team, he went on to become the youngest ITTF World Tour Champion and the youngest World Table Tennis Champion. In April 2018, he achieved the top spot in the world rankings after holding position No. 2 for 29 consecutive months, starting from November 2015.

Fan's attacking style of play involves explosive footwork and powerful forehand loops. His thick-set build has led fans and commentators to affectionately refer to him as "Little Fatty". His continuous rise to becoming one of the top table tennis players in the world has garnered him a large fanbase worldwide, with over half a million followers on Chinese social media site Weibo. In 2016, he won the ITTF Star Point Award, and he was nominated for the Best Male Star Award every year between 2013 and 2016.

Playing style and equipment
A right-handed shakehand-grip player, Fan plays an attacking style of table tennis using his explosive footwork and thunderous and well placed loops to finish off his opponents. Emerging as a 16-year-old wunderkind, Fan's playing style is often compared to his senior compatriot Ma Long. In addition to being trained by national team coaches, he has been specially trained by both Wang Hao and Ma Lin. His encounters against senior players in the Chinese national team have drawn much speculation and anticipation. His fearlessness and technique allow him to challenge highly rated, experienced players, sometimes even beating top players in thrilling style.

Fan raises his elbow higher on his strokes compared to some of his contemporaries such as Ma Long and Xu Xin, resulting in a stronger backhand-forehand transition game at the expense of a more vulnerable middle. In 2021, Timo Boll stated that he felt that he and Fan played a similar style except that Fan was better. Boll did not elaborate further.

Fan was a Stiga sponsored athlete. However, he changed to Butterfly Fan Zhendong ALC, he uses a black DHS Hurricane 3 neo National Blue Sponge for forehand and a Red Tenergy 05 for backhand. During the 2019 world table tennis championships, he changed to the new Butterfly Dignics 05 on his backhand that had just been released on 1 April 2019. Butterfly announced its signing of Fan Zhendong on 1 November 2021.

2013
On 3 January 2013, the Chinese table tennis team went straight to Paris for the first time

Fan In the first stage of the competition, Fan who was only 16 years old, defeated many famous players and won an unexpected second place, thus becoming the biggest dark horse. From 15 to 19 January, in the second stage of the Chinese men's table tennis selection that went directly to Paris, Fan Zhendong finally achieved eighth place.

2014
On 22 March, in the men's singles final of the Asian Cup Table Tennis Tournament, he lost to Ma Long 3:4 and won the runner-up.

On 5 May, the 52nd Team World Table Tennis Championships kicked off the men's team finals in Tokyo, Japan. In the end, the Chinese team defeated its opponent with a big score of 3-1 and won the men's team championship of this World Table Tennis Championships. Fan Zhendong also became the world champion by virtue of this competition, and won the world championship at the age of 17 years and 103 days, surpassing Ma Long who won the world championship at the age of 17 years and 8 months, becoming the youngest world champion in the history of men's table tennis.

2015
In January, he won the Dubai World Cup men's team championship with Zhang Jike, Ma Long, Xu Xin and Fang Bo. On 28 July 2015, in the 13th round of the Table Tennis Super League men's competition, 18-year-old Fan Zhendong of the Bayi Team won another victory this round. So far, his personal winning rate is still 100%. Winning 24 games, Fan Zhendong broke the Super League record of 23 games won by Ma Long in 2012.

2016
In June, Fan Zhendong won the men's singles championship at the ITTF World Tour Japan Open. It is worth mentioning that in the quarter-finals with French player Simon Gauzy, Fan Zhendong hit a "magic save". This "magic save" not only made Fan Zhendong's popularity soar, but also won the title of "Best Score of the Year" at the ITTF awards ceremony at the end of the year.

2017
On 8 March, in the final round of the World Table Tennis Championships in Dusseldorf held in Shenzhen, Fan Zhendong defeated Xu Xin 2-0, ranking first with 9 wins and 2 losses, and won the first Dusseldorf title. For tickets to the Seldorf World Table Tennis Championships, Malone, who also has 9 wins and 2 losses, can only be ranked second (because Fan Zhendong won the previous match against Malone). On 12 April, he won the men's team championship at the Asian Table Tennis Championships.

2018
In the early morning of 22 January 2018, the Hungarian Open, the first ITTF tournament in 2018, decided on four championships, all of which were won by China Table Tennis Federation. Fan Zhendong defeated another Chinese player Wang Chuqin 4-1 in the men's singles final and won the championship;

2019
On 3 March 2019, Fan Zhendong won all 11 matches in the 2019 Direct Tournament and received the qualification for singles participation in the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships in Budapest and a high cash reward of 1 million.

2020
On 15 November 2020, he defeated Ma Long 4-3 in the men's singles final of the 2020 Men's Table Tennis World Cup and won the championship for the fourth time. On 22 November, in the men's singles final of the 2020 ITTF Finals, Fan Zhendong lost to Ma Long 1-4 and won the runner-up.

2021
In May, Fan played in the Chinese Olympic Scrimmages. He won all his group matches 3–0 and defeated 16-year-old break-out star Lin Shidong, who defeated Xu Xin in the group stage, 4–2 in the quarter-finals. Because of Lin's similarity to Fan, he received the nickname "Little Little Fatty" by Chinese netizens. Fan defeated Wang Chuqin in the semi-finals, but lost to the dark horse champion Zhou Qihao in the finals. Fan was selected alongside Ma Long to represent China in the men's singles event at the Tokyo Olympics. Fan won the second leg of the Chinese Olympic Scrimmage, coming back from down 8–4 and 3–1 in games to defeat Xu Xin in the finals. Fan noted that his selection onto the Olympic team helped him focus better on his training and play better in the second leg compared to the first leg. Zhou again upset Fan in a closed-door scrimmage in June.

Although Ma Long called Fan the favorite before their Olympic finals match-up, Ma ended up upsetting Fan 4-2 in the Olympic finals, giving Ma the gold medal and Fan the silver. Despite the loss, Fan Zhendong still showed class, acknowledging Ma Long's control of the match and recognizing his own missed opportunities. When asked about Ma Long's place in history, Fan acknowledged that he is the greatest in their generation.

In September, Fan saved six match points to beat Ma Long in the fifth in the finals of the team event at the China National Games. Fan's win over Ma delivered Team Guangdong the gold medal. Fan Zhendong also won the gold in the men's singles event.

Performance timeline
(W) won; (F) finalist; (SF) semi-finalist; (QF) quarter-finalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1 (S) singles event; (MD) men's doubles event; (XD) mixed doubles event; (T) team event