Table tennis milestone
New record: 19-year-old becomes number one in the world
11.02.2025 – 3:48 p.m.Reading time: 1 min.
Lin Shidong climbed the top position of the table tennis world rankings at the age of 19. With that he broke a record.
The only 19-year-old Lin Shidong is the new leader in the table tennis world rankings. The Chinese is the youngest player who has ever become number one in the ITTF ranking.
Shidong made the crucial leap to the top with an impressive performance at the WTT Grand Smash in Singapore. There he triumphed three times: both in mixed and in doubles and in singles, he won the title. He replaced his compatriot Wang Chuqin as the number one in the world.
So far, Kong Linghui has held the record as the youngest world ranking list. The single Olympic champion of 2000 was 20 years old when he reached the top in 1996.
As the best non-Chinese, Timo Boll ranks sixth in this statistics. The German exceptional athlete won number one in the world rankings for the first time in 2003 at the age of 21 and nine months.