By the way if you want to see the World Ranking history for Wang Liqin just go here:
http://www.ittf.com/_front_page/ittf1.asp?category=wr
They won't give a link to his direct ranking so you have to select men world ranking and then click on Wang Liqin's name to see his World Ranking history.
In the 10 years that they have listed, his lowest ranking is 9th and that is recent.
In the period from November 2002 through October 2003 he struggled a little and his ranking at one point goes down to #6.
But in the period from September 2000 through September 2002 and in the period from June 2004 through February 2007 he showed almost total domination.
In looking closely at that ranking page these months are missing so I just do not know what Wang Liqin's rank was for these months:
March 2005 (missing) and January 2006. So one of those months he must have been ranked something other than #1 or he would have had 26 consecutive months of being ranked #1. But he did not.
So what I said was 24 consecutive months of being ranked #1 is inaccurate. But we ITTF does not say what his ranking was for March 2005 or January 2006.