Deng Yaping
Ma Lin
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Deng Yaping leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Deng Yaping at #3 and Ma Lin at #10.
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The case for Deng Yaping
Standing barely 1.50m tall and rejected early for her height, Deng Yaping became the most dominant woman the sport had seen, topping the world rankings for eight consecutive years. She won four Olympic gold medals, singles and doubles at both Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996, along with multiple World Championship singles titles and the honours to complete a career Grand Slam. Her ferocious close-to-table attack, aggressive penhold-influenced game and sheer competitive intensity redefined the women's game and made her a national icon in China. Retiring at just 24, she left as arguably the greatest female player ever, later earning degrees at Cambridge and serving in Olympic administration, a rare champion whose legacy reached far beyond the table.
The case for Ma Lin
The finest penhold player of the modern era, Ma Lin was a master of serve, short game and the reverse-penhold backhand who won four Women's, and men's, World Cup singles titles, a men's record, in 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2006. His crowning achievement was Olympic singles gold at Beijing 2008, won in front of a home crowd, along with team and doubles golds. The conspicuous gap in his record is a World Championship singles title, which repeatedly slipped away and denied him the career Grand Slam. Renowned for the finest serve and touch of his generation, he kept the classical penhold style competitive at the very top even as shakehand play came to dominate the sport.