The Greatest Male?
Photo courtesy of ITTF
Who is the Greatest Male Table Tennis player of all time?
While impossible to answer this categorically, the question will always be posed. For me, it is out of Guo Yue Hua, Kong Ling Hui, Chuang Tse-Tung, Wang Liqin and of course Jan-Ove Waldner?
Chuang Tse-Tungs’ 3 World Singles titles in a row from ‘61 to ‘65 must put him up there in the race. No chance for him to win Olympic or World Cup titles.
Guo Yuehua’s reaching the final of the World Championships for 4 Worlds in a row makes him a serious contender. He was the winner in ‘81 and ‘83 and runner-up in ‘77 and ‘79. He also won 2 World Cups in ‘80 and ‘82. Again, he lived at the wrong time for Olympic and World Cup opportunities.
Kong Ling Hui’s won World Championship Gold in ‘95 and Silver in 2001, Olympic Gold in 2000 and World Cup Gold in ‘95.
Wang Liqin has already secured 3 Worlds Championships, in 2001, 2005 and 2007. However, you would think that there is more opportunity for him to rack up a few more titles before he is finished. The Beijing Olympics looms large for him.
Waldner has 2 World Championships in ‘89 and ‘97 and Olympic Gold in 92 with a Silver in 2000 and the memorable 4th in 2004, and his World Cup in ‘90. I think what is undoubted is that he has the longevity award all sewn up.
Let us know your thoughts…
Jeff Plumb
commented on August 17th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
For me, it has to be Waldner. He was also the runner-up in the World Championships of 1987 and 1991. And as mentioned in the blog, the fact that he remained near the top of the World Rankings for such a long time makes him my pick.
Mattias
commented on August 20th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Waldner - the evergreen tree.
This clip is just from his “early” career:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=v8Q9kdIEHwo&mode=related&search=
His most impressive title for me is the 97′ world champs (not in the movie clip above) where he didn’t loose a single game throughout the whole tournament, and that at an age when everyone thought his best days were years behind.
Mattias
commented on August 20th, 2007 at 12:06 am
It shouldn’t be forgotten that he led Sweden to at least 4 team world champs titles as well (although Jorgen Persson also played a crucial role in that).
Name Required
commented on August 21st, 2007 at 11:25 am
I tend to agree about Waldner. He has definitely changed the table tennis sports. Right up there would also be his coach Stellan Bengtsson, who still holds the title of the youngest to win the World Championship (Singles nonetheless) title at the age of 18. Not only that, but he also developed 2 future World Champions Waldner and Persson. To be fair, we probably should divide the title into 3 eras, the Pre-speed Glue era (1960-1980), the Speed Glue era (1980-2000), and the Big 40 era (for 40mm balls).
George Braighwaite
commented on December 10th, 2007 at 6:20 am
Hello All,
After a careful study of the great names mentioned I would have to conclude that Waldner truly represents being the greatest of all time. There is one more thing that should be taken into consideration and that is HIS VERSATILITY. He was never and is not a one dimentional player BUT a player who even during one point has demonstrated all varieties of stroke play including the LOB, CHOP, SPIN, DROP SHOT, TABLE TOUCH GAME,AWAY FROM THE TABLE GAME AND SERVES.
What more can we ask for!
George
Richard Lee
commented on April 10th, 2008 at 11:00 am
While all those mentioned are certainly contenders for the greatest of all time,if such a subjective debate can ever be quantified in any way,what about Victor Barna (5 world singles) and ,in particular,Richard Bergmann (4 World singles).He (Bergmann) won 2 pre-world 2 and 2 post world war 2 so it is reasonable to assume he would have won some of the 7 world champs not contested from 1939/40 through to 1945/46.
How to give weightings to the fact that worlds were contested annually until 1956/57 and thence every 2 years with the Olympic title added from 1988 been a further complication in assessing the subject will always mean it is doubtful will general consensus will ever be reached in comparing eras.
A book on Jan-Ove Waldner (’When the feeling Decides’) printed a the results of a poll on this subject conducted between 10 sports journalists.Each journalist gave their top 5 with 1 mark/point being awarded for 1st,2 for 2nd etc.
Waldner was top on every list with a perfect score of 10;Guo was 2nd with 25 ‘marks’;Chuang 3rd with 35;Jiang Jialing 4th with 61 and Ichiro Ogimura 5th with 62 points-Barna with 6th
It must be mentioned that of the 10 journalists polled 8 were Swedish so how much notice can be taken of it is arguable.-And of course since them Wang Liquin has won 3 worlds.An Olympic singles title could see a justifiable case for him been the all-time number1.
Mark Smythe
commented on April 17th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I believe it’s too subjective but always a good debate.
As Richard pointed out (results wise), the World C’ships have changed from deing annual, to biannually to not contested during WW2, so it makes it impossible to get an ACCURATE guide.
Also, the Chinese system doesn’t allow its players to have the longevity such as the Waldner’s, Persson’s etc, etc, so (again) it makes the task actually impossible to assess.
Richard Lee
commented on April 17th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
While it has has been pointed this cannot be quantified in any manner,Guo Yuehua showed what a great player he was when 4 years after retiring he made a comback to play for SSV Reulingen in The German Bundesliga for a few years .During that time he beat both Waldner (twice without losing) and Persson (in 1991 in an international tournament ) when those 2 players were dominating the international scene.
In his book ,Waldner said the player he would most have liked to play in a dream match was Guo-saying,’unfortunately we never had the opportunity to meet in an important match’ which is as high a praise as one could get.-obviously Waldner didn’t see the matches he lost to Guo in as important
Another interesting,but ultimately fatuous topic which has often been debated is ‘who is the best player never to have won the men’s singles at the world championship’.
Bellak,Ehrlich and LiFurong all were all runner-up 3 times each which would have to make them contenders for this imaginary title which I am sure none of them would have wanted.Also Ivan Andreadis’s name always crops up in this discussion -twice runner-up and 6 times losing semi-finalist,while from more recent times Kjell Johansson ,Tibor Klampar, Dragutin Surbek,Ling Geliang and CaiZhenhua’s names are sometimes mentioned-though as only CaiZhenhua (twice) and Johannsson (once ) made the final it is a bit difficult to see how they rank with the other player’s mentioned.
Current players can’t really be considered in this discussion until their careers are finished but MaLin seems to be putting himself into contention.
Perhaps I would go for LiFurong as his 3 runner’s -up were consecutive and done when the frequency of the World championships had changed to every 2 years.
Phil Boyle
commented on April 22nd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
The discusssion is moot, since so many Chinese matches have been manufactured. Zhou Lan Sun told me he had to lose he 65 worlds semi to Chuang, because his (Zhou’s) father had worked for the Nationalists in the fight against the communists.
I personally think Wang Liqin is the ultimate player. Was a miracle he lost that match to Schlager, otherwise he’d be 4 times champ.
PB
Richard Lee
commented on April 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 am
Zhou Lan Sun lost to Li Furong in the semis at the 1965 World Championships,not Zhuang Zedong -Zhuang beat Eberhard Scholer in the other semi.
The accusation that many matches between Chinese players are fixed has been an on-going debate ever since the 1960s.
It was contended by many people that Lifurong had to lose to Zhuang in the 3 finals they played in 1961,63 and 65.- for the same reson as given in the last post-Li came from a wealthy background unlike Zhuang ,whose father was a physician.
However many other respected international players,-Denis Neale and Alan Tomlinson to name two- contended that Zhuang was the better player mainly because of his superior backhand.
Li himself maintained the rumours of match-fixing were unfounded,saying the 2 were more or less equal and sometimes Zhuang won and sometimes he (Li) won-it all depended on the day and who took better advantage of their psychologigal abilities and used their strong points better-indicating that perhaps in the biggest matches Zhuang was mentally stronger.
Lastly with all the accusations of match-fixing between the Chinese it cannot be assumed that the player who ‘had’ to lose-if indeed the rumours were founded-would have won wwhich seems to be the common assumption.
Mathias
commented on August 23rd, 2008 at 7:31 am
Waldner, and it isn’t even close. His versatiliti has already been mentioned. More importantly, to be “the greatest” you need more than statistics. In addition to titles, Waldner has the charisma, the ego etc. of a S u p e r s t a r. (And he’s got the game to back it). Don’t know if the average Joe-TT would appreciate this quality, but to anyone not on glue surely does.
vinay
commented on January 29th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Hi,After all of your comments i conclude that waldner(alll times table tennis champion,michael jordan of TT, Lao wa in china, Mozart of TT) is always a great player. He has the different strokes in his belt. He invented new strokes which were not in TT book, He is an innovator of the strokes. This made him in the top of the world for almost 24years.
krish
commented on February 2nd, 2009 at 6:40 am
hi frenz ma lin is definetely got to be right up there, besides if wang liqin is there so can ma lin. he has got some great stats to back him!!
Filip
commented on March 31st, 2009 at 8:49 am
Indeed there was a lot of good players but there’s only one gene. J.O.
baptistpreach
commented on April 17th, 2009 at 2:31 am
I would have to say that the Chinese have already answered the Q. They call him Lao Wa - I think that means Great One. Maybe I’m biased, but whenever someone breaks through the glass ceiling, that aura propels them to the top - Jackie Robinson, Bobby Fischer, and Jan Ove
Thanks for reminding us that the non Asians CAN do it… If only TT caught on here, I’m sure the talent is in America we just haven’t found it yet, cause he was to busy playing tennis, or golf
goutham srinivas
commented on November 7th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
For me, waldner is the greatest ever player. he is the only
player who possesses each and every shot in table tennis
TOMMY
commented on December 26th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Wow, a retiree can beat waldner. That must be no ordinary retiree. Oops, I am sorry, that was Guo, the 2nd best player in the world, after Waldner of course.
Brian Halliday
commented on February 19th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
I have seen at first hand all the world’s best players since the 2nd World War. Without any shadow of doubt in my mind Chuang Tse Tung was easily the best I have ever seen. I was fortunate to be present in Ljubliana when he beat Li Fu Jung in quite merciless fassion. I have seen Waldner on many occasions, including his 97 triumph in Birmingham, but he still does not compare. Chuang was just an incrible table tennis machine. I know many of todays top stars rate Waldner as the best and make out very strong cases on his behalf, however they did not see Chuang at first hand and believe me he was awesome.
Alois Rosario
commented on February 23rd, 2010 at 7:09 am
That certainly was another golden era in Chinese table tennis. I was lucky enough to be coached by the late Zhou Lan Sun who made the semi finals and lost to Li Fu Jung.