The new year 2025 has arrived, and as early as the day before (December 31, 2024), the International Table Tennis Federation had already announced the world rankings for the first week of the new year. Affected by the withdrawal of three national table tennis Olympic champions - Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, and Chen Meng - many positions have changed.
According to the official website, the current number one women's doubles team in the world has changed from Chen Meng/Wang Manyu to South Korea's Tian Zhiqi/Shin Yubin (who had previously also ranked first), while the men's doubles first place continues to be held by France's Lebrun brothers. As for the men's singles, women's singles, and mixed doubles first places, they still belong to Wang Chuqin, Sun Yingsha, and Wang Chuqin/Sun Yingsha respectively. For more details, please see the following text.
In fact, international table tennis competitions have largely come to a halt since the Chengdu Mixed Team World Cup ended on December 8, so there would not have been much change in the world rankings after week 50 (December 10). However, unexpectedly, on December 27, Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng suddenly announced their withdrawal from the world rankings, which naturally caused turmoil.
In the previous week 52 world rankings (December 24), Fan Zhendong was ranked sixth in the men's singles, and Chen Meng was fourth in the women's singles. Additionally, Fan Zhendong/Wang Chuqin ranked eighth in the men's doubles, and Chen Meng/Wang Manyu ranked first in the women's doubles, but now they are no longer displayed on the list.
As for Ma Long, although he did not publicly declare his withdrawal from the world rankings like Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng, his name has disappeared from the list published on December 31, including the previous eighth place in the men's singles, fifth place in the men's doubles (partnering with Wang Chuqin), and sixth place (partnering with Lin Gaoyuan). However, the mixed doubles ranking remained unchanged as Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, and Chen Meng had not previously partnered with other teammates to achieve a ranking.
The top ten men's singles world rankings for this period are Wang Chuqin, Lin Shidong, Tomokazu Ishihara, Felix Lebrun, Liang Jingkun, Hugo, Moregad, Lin Gaoyuan, Qiu Dang, and Patrick Franziska. The last two were able to return to the top ten after Fan Zhendong and Ma Long withdrew.
The latest top ten women's singles world rankings are Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, Wang Yidi, Chen Xingtong, Hina Hayata, Miyuu Tomokazu, Misa Oda, Cheng I-Ching, Shin Yubin, and Mima Ito, with Japanese Olympic champion Mima Ito making a comeback.
As previously mentioned, the top three doubles world rankings are currently divided among combinations from three different associations, including China's Wang Chuqin/Sun Yingsha in mixed doubles, France's Lebrun brothers in men's doubles, and South Korea's Tian Zhiqi/Shin Yubin in women's doubles. Tian Zhiqi/Shin Yubin returned to first place because the Chen Meng/Wang Manyu combination lost their ranking, which can be considered an unexpected joy.
Through articles posted online by Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng, it is known that the two chose to withdraw from the world rankings because they could not tolerate the WTT World Table Tennis Federation's regulations on penalties for withdrawing from matches; Ma Long has not publicly responded to this matter, but it is likely due to similar considerations. However, considering that he is already 36 years old, it would not be particularly surprising whenever he chooses to leave.
Before this, these three Olympic champions had all ranked first in singles, and had also topped the doubles points list. Now that their world rankings have suddenly been cleared, it is indeed surprising and regrettable for fans, perhaps indicating that their era has really passed.