Dan

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Dan

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It's that time of the year everyone! The January World rankings have been released by the ITTF and here are the listings below! The rankings were published by the International Table Tennis Federation on Wednesday 4th January 2012.

Similar to the December ITTF World Rankings in 2011, Ma Long and Ding Ning go into the New Year as number one in the World in their respective Men's and Women's categories. This is the sixteenth time Ma Long has been ranked at World number 1 with Ding Ning claiming the number one spot for a fourth time.

Who would have thought it, Ma Long's first major achievement was back in 2003 at the New Zealand's Junior Open in Wellington. Ma Long reached the semi-final stage of the Junior Boy's Singles event. Ma Long lost to Zhang Jike in the semi-final in Junior boys event and Zhang went on to win the event! Zhang Jike has retained his number 2 position from December 2011. Matt Hetherington did you watch this? Can you get any footage of these two sensational players when they played Wellington? :)

malongdingningjanuary.jpg

Ma Long Left - Photo by: Scott Heavey/Getty Images Europe
Ding Ning Right - Photo by: firstpost.com


The December period was very quite in terms of International Table Tennis, so there was not much change in the rankings with only a one change in the top ten World Rankings (Men and Women).


Mens World Rankings

1) Ma Long
2) Zhang Jike
3) Wang Hao
4) Timo Boll
5) Xu Xin
6) Wang Liqin
7) Ma Lin
8) Joo Se Hyuk
9) Jun Mizutani
10) Dimitrij Ovtcharov

Full list of Men's World Rankings here

The Men's Top 10 World Ranking has only one change.

Wang Hao still keeps his third spot followed by Europe's super star Timo Boll. The Chinese gruesome threesome remain next in line with Xu Xin at fifth spot, Wang Liqin at sixth and Ma Lin at seven. Korea's Joo Se Hyuk swaps places with Jun MIzutani of Japan to take eighth spot. And the almighty two winged top spin attacker Dimitrij Ovtcharov retains inside the top.


Womens World Rankings

1) Ding Ning
2) Li Xiaoxia
3) Guo Yan
4) Liu Shiwen
5) Feng Tianwei
6) Guo Yue
7) Wang Yuegu
8) Kasumi Ishikawa
9) Ai Fukuhara
10) Yana Tie

Full list of Women's World Rankings here

Only one change in the women's top ten rankings. This was seen by Singapore's Wang Yuegu who swapped places with Kasumi Ishikawa to take seventh spot.

What a year 2011 has been! We are now in one of the most anticipated years of Table Tennis History! The 2012 season for table tennis will really take off, including the World Tour, World Team Championships, London Olympics and much more!

I wonder how much these rankings will change in 1 years time. 2013 January :)
 

Dan

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Dan

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December 4th, 2012?? I didn't know you can predict the future :O

Corrected hehe. Thanks for letting me know. Wish I could predict the future that would be cool ha :p.. I'm going to predict Ma Long to still be at number 1 spot in December 2012 tho :)
 
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Koki Niwa is now number 1 on both the U18 and the U21 ranking.

And I looked at the rankings of January 2011, just some changes over the year I noticed:
(between brackets is the rank in January 2011)
1 (2) Ma Long
2 (4) Zhang Jike
4 (10) Xu Xin
5 (1) Timo Boll
14 (6) Vladimir Samsonov
16 (33) Seiya Kishikawa
19 (38) Adrien Mattenet
23 (83) Koki Niwa
24 (56) Kim Min Seok
25 (53) Bojan Tokic
29 (53) Kirill Skachkov
30 (63) Seo Hyun Deok
31 (64) Lee Sang Su
34 (51) Marcos Freitas
34 (17) Tang Peng
37 (87) Lin Gaoyuan
45 (26) Tiago Apolonia
 
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Dan

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Dan

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Koki Niwa is now number 1 on both the U18 and the U21 ranking.

And I looked at the rankings of January 2011, just some changes over the year I noticed:
(between brackets is the rank in January 2011)
1 (2) Ma Long
2 (4) Zhang Jike
4 (10) Xu Xin
5 (1) Timo Boll
14 (6) Vladimir Samsonov
16 (33) Seiya Kishikawa
19 (38) Adrien Mattenet
23 (83) Koki Niwa
24 (56) Kim Min Seok
25 (53) Bojan Tokic
29 (53) Kirill Skachkov
30 (63) Seo Hyun Deok
31 (64) Lee Sang Su
37 (87) Lin Gaoyuan
34 (51) Marcos Freitas
45 (26) Tiago Apolonia

Thanks Steven this is great!

The Japanese players including Seiya, Koki did great! All those jumps are an incredible transformation in just 1 year!
 

Dan

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Dan

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I would like to see the brink players breaking into the top 10, especially the younger ones. Players like Matternet and Kishikawa stepping it up. It would be an awesome 2012.

*can't believe i just used the word awesome:D

Haha that would be awesome! You have been reading my messages to much lol! :)

But you are right, I would love to see the top 10 change a lot more, and younger players including the likes you have mentioned break the top 10 barrier. I think the top 50 rankings will change a lot in the 2012 season as there are a lot of rising stars hungry and determined to get to the top. A lot of the older players in the top 50 rankings could potentially drop down.
 
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It is maybe not realistic to get many new guys inside the top-10, but it is interesting what players will enter further in the 10-20 spots, and how players like Gao Ning and Tang Peng will do.

You are right Wiwa, many of the current top 10 players are playing rather well..but I think no 8, 9 and 10 are up for grabs if they're not careful, since the points are rather close. Unless players like Vladimir, Chen Qi, Oh Sang Eun and Chuang Chih Yuan have got something to say in 2012.
 
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Damn.. if only I started playing TT 6 years earlier I might have met Zhang Jike and Ma Long at wellington?? :eek:

True Willfred, but you might not have remembered them.
I was there for it (2003 was my first NZ open) but can't remember much of the Junior Circuit, cos I was only 13 at the time and didn't know who the players were :p
You would have been... 7 years old LOL
 
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It's pretty easy to drop down quickly on the world rankings - believe me! There are so many players always pushing behind you and if you're not constantly winning then you move down quickly. You lose a lot of points even for losing to similarly ranked players and I know this is one thing that the ITTF Athlete's Committee is looking at changing.
 
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I think a lot of people aren't taking into account how many players in the Top 100 are getting towards the age of retiring and/or being overcome by the younger generation. Even in China there's a clear uprising of younger stars replacing the older veterans. It only stands to reason the same would happen in Europe and the rest of Asia. A lot of these larger jumps are just clear characteristics of a transitional period in TT at the moment. It's been a few years since many of these players have won the major titles of the Cadet and Junior events they're just now getting used to the older more experienced players in the Pro Circuit and it kind of shows that they're skill is really showing truer at the moment. I think very soon excluding maybe the Chinese veteran players many of the older generation players will either start retiring or drop down farther than they have ever been before.
 
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Mr Richard is right, older players get it tougher and tougher to remain at their level. They have to rely on tactics and experience to beat the young players, while they don't know the game of the younger players very well. The younger players have seen the older players play for maybe more than a decade, so they know what they are up against. Some retire relatively early, others keep playing on a lower level because they still have fun.
 
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