A friend once pointed me to a video on YouTube where there was a discussion on why Ma Long is the GOAT in table tennis (I think the video got some facts incorrect but let's leave that aside for the moment). My friend liked the video, but my contrarian side was not as impressed. I told him that I rarely get impressed by people who assert the conventional wisdom, I would be more impressed if he explained why the GOAT debate is not always as clear cut as Ma Long's post 2015 dominance seems to affirm. So I decided it would be a good idea to mention some things that people who have decided the GOAT debate in favor of Ma Long tend to omit when discussing the nuances of the debate. After discussing this, I will reconsider some of the evidence that is used to argue that Ma Long is the GOAT and then come to a final conclusion.
The plastic ball: I think the biggest argument against Ma Long being the GOAT is his relative lack of major tournament wins before the implementation and popularization of the plastic ball. I say relative because Ma Long had many dominant tournament performances in the cell ball era and did win 1 World Cup in the cell ball era in 2012. However, the plastic ball tended to make the issues with his backhand easier to deal with and he also made changes to his backhand equipment and orientation after the plastic ball was implemented. Would these changes have been sufficient without the plastic ball making it easier to control backhand attacks? That's a hypothetical I cannot answer. But many players with deficient backhands found it easier to defend and attack with their backhands after the plastic ball was introduced,
The psychological hurdle of Wang Hao: Wang Hao knew how to beat Ma Long at the WTTC events, doing so three times in a row (2009, 2011 and 2013). Is it a pure coincidence that Ma Long finally won a WTTC after Wang Hao retired? Now Wang Hao himself has a reasonable argument for the GOAT with an extended period of strong performance, though his argument for the GOAT doesn't survive transitive comparisons. However, his dominance of Ma Long in the WTTC Singles event will return when we look at some of the arguments that are used to criticize some of the other candidates for the GOAT title who had bad head-to-head records at events or throughout their career against certain opposition, as this is also a criticism of Fan Zhendong's candidacy and something that needs some nuance when applied to the candidacy of players like Zhang Jike.
The relative stagnation of Europe: Let's bring up the concept of consistently great players - in the 80s and 90s, Europe had consistently great players who could compete with the Chinese and other East Asians. You could tell this not just by the fact such players won titles (Waldner, Gatien, Persson), but also by the fact that the tier below or close to them like Rosskopf, Primorac, Saive, Samsonov was also extremely strong. While players like Boll and Ovtcharov came later and were also consistent, the fact that the players from the 80s and 90s often played into thelr late 30s and early 40s could be attributed (admittedly arguably) to the level of the players behind them being not as strong, leading to China having a dominant generation (Ma Long, Zhang Jike, Xu Xin, Fan Zhendong) at the same time Europe's great generation was getting older and other countries did not have great players that were as strong or consistent as the older generations.
Despite all these issues (and I might add more in future version of these articles), Ma Long is considered the GOAT by many. Why would that be the case? Well, his counting stats in the modern era are impressive. He is the only male player with 2 Olympic singles golds (Waldner, Zhang Jike and Kong Linghui all have one gold and one silver). He won three singles World Championship gold medals in singles between 2015 and 2019 and won bronze every other time he participated (2009, 2011,2013, 2023) except the very first time in 2007. IMHO, only Waldner has equally impressive longevity though Kong Linghui has a relatively decent case. There are also some impressive victory/no match lost streaks of 50 matches twice in his career, one happening 4 years before he became world Champion and with the celluoid ball. Moreover, he has continental titles, national titles and a stellar ITTF record (though he amazingly never won a WTT title despite reaching a few finals, but that was partly bad luck against strong opponents).
However, me being who I am, always open to looking at other issues. One thing I always bring up when discussing the GOAT issue is the poor service rules in TT and Ma Long was not innocent in perpetuating this issue in table tennis. One of the early debuts of TTR (table tennis review) that allowed the analysis of serves was in 2017 at the Tour Grand Finals and the umpires faulted Ma Long a few times for tosses that went behind the plane of his body and the calls were upheld by TTR just about about every time. I personally believe without any serious evidence that this is why TTR was hardly seen on the tour until Ma Long retired. No hard evidence of this, but the timing checks out.
Then there is of course the opinions of peers who played against them, which usually agrees with the stats, but not always. Zhang Jike's big match ability during the cell ball era was something to behold and Dimitri Ovtcharov has him as his GOAT. Wang Liqin's career and dominance may have lasted longer if the speed glue era hadn't ended. Fan Zhendong, while psychologically dominated by Ma Long in an even worse way than Wang Hao dominated Ma Long, played great table tennis against the rest of the world.
So is Ma Long the GOAT? I won't hold it against you if you say yes. And I won't hold it against you if you say no either especially if you make the case for players like Fan Zhendong, Zhang Jike, Waldner, Wang Liqin, Wang Hao and Ma Lin based on the eye test or other subjective factors like I did.
