Is Chinese TT just going to go downhill from here?

[TensorBackhand]

I think the prime era of men's TT dominance is slowly fading. Decades before, Chinese families saw TT training as a way to escape poverty, get a education, and just send their children off to the state training system.

But today's China is different. You can go work for tech companies or hospitals or government or insurance or manufacturing. It makes less economic sense to give up your kid to the training system.

From solar to drone to AI to robotics to software to medicine, seems like all their fields are going the right direction. Fewer and fewer people will want to dedicate themselves to TT.

It seems like the amazing legacy of Wang Liqin to Ma Lin to ZJK to Ma Long is ending.

WCQ is a pretty unique and special player, but it doesn't seem like China can consistently produce a dominant top 5 anymore.

I think China will still be the top team, but just not as dominant as in the past.

 

[sebi]

It's the same in every country where sports was an escape into a good future. Look at Germany and football the same thing is happening. Football pitches are empty the new generation is hooked on smartphones not football.

America for me is an exception because they get payed education if they are good at sports. But for most countries wealth equals less good at sports.

 

[SFF_lib]

Being a Chinese, having more unpredictable outcomes in each tournament is just good for the sport.

I love ML, XX and FZD. But back in their gold era, I just don’t bother watching anymore. It was always two Chinese playing the final.

In women’s game was/is worse, you would be very very lucky to see a non-Chinese in the semi finals.

I wasn’t there but people told me in the 1990s tt was very very popular. You see different athletes in semi finals in each tournament. They could be any four players from China, Japan, Korea, Croatia, France, Germany, Belarus or Sweden.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

I think the prime era of men's TT dominance is slowly fading. Decades before, Chinese families saw TT training as a way to escape poverty, get a education, and just send their children off to the state training system.

But today's China is different. You can go work for tech companies or hospitals or government or insurance or manufacturing. It makes less economic sense to give up your kid to the training system.

This is indeed a factor. The Chinese government has also reprioritized their investment in sports in recent years, moving away from sole focus from becoming an Olympic medal factory but also focusing on accessibility and infrastructure for all common citizens.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Chinese didn't go anywhere, the world just caught up.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Chinese didn't go anywhere, the world just caught up.

Wrong. ML and FZD went somewhere. Losing two all time greats (and those that preceded them like ZJK, WH, WLQ) leads to a wake up call.

 

[Der_Echte]

Chinese... Downhill.

Maybe start by defining what is downhill, maybe I have a different understanding of what downhill means.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Wrong. ML and FZD went somewhere. Losing two all time greats (and those that preceded them like ZJK, WH, WLQ) leads to a wake up call.

True and Only Real Reason:
the benevolent CNT sent out coaches to the world, invited players to train with them, basically open up their ways to the world. The magnanimous CNT wanted the world to move up on par because the CNT got bored of winning.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

True and Only Real Reason:
the benevolent CNT sent out coaches to the world, invited players to train with them, basically open up their ways to the world. The magnanimous CNT wanted the world to move up on par because the CNT got bored of winning.

You might be joking, but there is truth to this

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

You might be joking, but there is truth to this

It may be an alien concept to Westerners; but Chinese has an in-built cultural concept of The Greater Good.

For those not in the know: The pic is that of a Water Caste Tau Female. One of the playable race in the Warhammer 41K series. Their society is founded on the concept of " The Greater Good "

 

[Attitude]

Anyone else reading this crap while seeing only chinese since women semifinals, having lsd in finals, gold in mixed and in women doubles. The hell is going downhill here.
Even Ma Long and FZD struggled from time to time. I mean FZD nearly lost to Harimoto in olympia...

Maybe you should straighten your facts and dont be such a dramaqueen. Enjoy the ride.

 

[latej]

I think the prime era of men's TT dominance is slowly fading.

I think the current equipment, esp. harder balls, favors stronger and bigger players, and eventually while having the same "athleticity", those will be in favor. So I'd say that is one factor why the world is catching up, and more on men's side, where the difference is stronger... Well, time may prove me wrong ;-)

EDIT: Example, Adrien Rassenfosse, I really enjoyed his performance.

 

[Yuomay]

I think if you take into account the entirety of all TT competitions (weighted for importance) and look at how many are won by the Chinese national team… they’re still very much dominant.

It only makes sense to lose a bit of your dominance if your best and third best players stop simultaneously.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Need to see if Cnt C team will fix the situation

While less kids are going the sports route, and this crisis has been around in many provincial teams in China, there is still a big number of kids playing full time.

The rest of the world is improving while Chinese dominance is being challenged. New boss is on board, and straight away his Doha closed training was a 8am to 10pm schedule.

I feel Cnt will still be favourites for now with more and more upsets.

C team has only been around for a few years, soon they will enter B and then A.
So, we will see

 

[zeio]

Hmm, at this point, regardless of dominance or not, I found myself more interested in PPA Tour Asia Hong Kong Open 2025 than Europe Smash 2025 yesterday (WCT/Baldwin reaching the MD final was good enough) that I decided to go visit the brand-new Kai Tak Sports Park to see what it's really all about and wasn't disappointed (I could see why Hirano wanted to give it a try)...

Pickleball is the future!

Looks like a Friendly Neighborhood...

 

[M51]

CNT needs to nurture superstars again, for the good of the sport.

Europe is doing a great job in this regard right now, Truls, the Lebruns, even Darko and Anton with the addition of Hugo (not European, but non-Chinese) are crowd-pleasers, on top of being awesome athletes.

Instead of being an escape from poverty, table tennis should be seen as ladder to glory.

To illustrate, here's an old photo of Ma Long and Zhang Jike doing the A-list celeb thing, living it up.

The new kids don't have the same star power energy.

 

[SFF_lib]

I personally played badminton and tt intensely for some years.

I also teach a lot of gen Z on a daily basis.

What I've observed from pickleball, badmin and table tennis:

• Gen Z overall has incredibly short attention span
• Peer pressure and social media status has become more important than ever before

Learning tt is just really really hard for kids.
You hit a bottleneck very often. Each bottleneck takes discipline to overcome. You need to overcome 10 bottlenecks from 0 --> 20

Learning badminton and pickleball (thanks to lack of spin) does not give you that much trouble to go from 0 --> 20.

One of our national team girl got laughed at and bullied because she played tt. She gave up tt at the end.

Each year we had sports club photo shot, most our tt players don't turn up.

I am not entirely sure what it is that gives tt the unpopular image among the gen Z and alpha.

 

[WingTT]

It may be an alien concept to Westerners; but Chinese has an in-built cultural concept of The Greater Good.View attachment 37617
For those not in the know: The pic is that of a Water Caste Tau Female. One of the playable race in the Warhammer 41K series. Their society is founded on the concept of " The Greater Good "

No Gozo, stop spreading lies. That is some anime goonerified version of the Tau and it's 40K not 41K.

 

[NetProphet]

It may be an alien concept to Westerners; but Chinese has an in-built cultural concept of The Greater Good.View attachment 37617
For those not in the know: The pic is that of a Water Caste Tau Female. One of the playable race in the Warhammer 41K series. Their society is founded on the concept of " The Greater Good "

I would counter that their society is built upon their incontestable definition of The Greater Good.....

 

[NetProphet]

Anyone else reading this crap while seeing only chinese since women semifinals, having lsd in finals, gold in mixed and in women doubles. The hell is going downhill here.
Even Ma Long and FZD struggled from time to time. I mean FZD nearly lost to Harimoto in olympia...

Maybe you should straighten your facts and dont be such a dramaqueen. Enjoy the ride.

Well the facts are all open to interpretation through our own individual lens. But they also show that there are more tournaments and medals being shared by more nationalities than there were in the past.

Personally I don't see that China are weaker but that the rest of the world has gotten stronger. I think this is seen by looking at the strength of the field in the men's game - stronger than ever before imo....
And the rest of the world not stronger on the womens side is probably attached to what SFF LIB said about women's participation.
I don't know what clubs are like where everyone else is but around me it's 95% men playing, so few women playing at all.