(by Steve Hopkins)
No surprises at the top of the ITTF Rankings as the recent China National Games Champion Fan Zhendong stayed No. 1 while Olympic Champion Ma Long maintained the second spot. The two are separated by under 300 points with 12,494 and 12,212 points respectively. The third and fourth spots are also unchanged with Xu Xin as the only other player above 10,000 points stays in third and Tomokazu Harimoto (with 8709) stays in fourth.
Hugo Calderano was the biggest mover of the Top 25, jumping up three spots on the strength of his WTT title in Doha. Hugo is no No. 5, jumping over Lin Yun-Ju, Lin Gaoyuan, and Dimitrij Ovtcharov (who are 6, 7, and 8 in the list). Mattias Falck and Timo Boll round out the top 10. Quadri Aruna is the top African player at No. 16. Kanak Jha, the top North American player, moves up two slots to No. 30
There’s no movement in the Women’s Top 10. Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha are the top two and Mima Ito of Japan remains third. Lily Zhang drops two spots to No. 35, but remains USA’s top player (Jennifer Wu is close behind at No. 39). Adriana Diaz is the top player in North America – the Puerto Rican is No. 18. These are actually the top three players in the hemisphere and Bruna Takahashi of Brazil is next in line at No. 45. The top 15 players in the Women’s Rankings are all from the same 6 Asian Countries. Sofia Polcanova of Austria and Petrissa Solja are the top Europeans at No. 16 and 17.
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