Rong Guotuan
ChinaChina's First World Champion
- Men's singles champion, 1959 World Championships (25th edition)
- Mainstay of China's men's team title at the 1961 World Championships (26th edition)
- China's first world champion
PongGear
PongGear is a table tennis site covering blades and rubbers, stroke technique, the sport's history, Hall of Fame players, match stories and practical resources — for players picking gear, fixing their technique and understanding the game.
Sections
Hall of Fame picks
Deng Yaping
ChinaEight Straight Years at World No. 1 · Four Olympic Golds
- Two women's singles and two women's doubles gold medals across Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996 (four in total)
- Eight consecutive years as world No. 1 in women's singles
- Multiple World Championships women's singles and team titles
Zhang Yining
ChinaThe Only Women's Double Grand Slam · "The Big Devil"
- The only women's double Grand Slam winner
- Women's singles champion, 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics
- Women's singles champion, 2005 Shanghai and 2009 Yokohama World Championships
Ma Long
ChinaDouble Grand Slam winner · the most decorated Olympic athlete in Chinese history
- Men's "double Grand Slam" (2016/2020 Olympic singles + World Championships + World Cup)
- Three consecutive World Championships men's singles titles (2015/2017/2019)
- 6 Olympic gold medals, the most of any Chinese athlete
Jan-Ove Waldner
SwedenThe First Men's Grand Slam · "The Evergreen"
- Men's singles champion, 1992 Barcelona Olympics
- Men's singles champion, 1989 and 1997 World Championships
- The first men's Grand Slam winner; men's singles runner-up at the 2000 Sydney Olympics
Sun Yingsha
ChinaYears at World No. 1 · Three Straight World Cup Titles
- Women's singles champion, 2023 Durban and 2025 Doha World Championships
- Mixed doubles champion (China's first Olympic mixed doubles gold) and women's team champion, 2024 Paris Olympics
- Three straight Women's World Cup singles titles (2024/2025/2026); year-end world No. 1 four years running
Latest
How to read the news: five categories, what each is for
A navigation page for the news section. What the five categories (Tournaments, Team China, Stars, Equipment, Rules & Reform) cover, why they are ordered that way, and how often news is updated.
How to Buy Gear: From Where the Money Goes to How the Racket Comes Together
A navigation page for the 8 equipment articles. Where the money and attention should go, which step of buying you're stuck on, where the matching article is, and the threads running through them all. New players start with Pre-Assembled or Custom-Built — don't research composite blades and pro setups on day one.
Where to Start Training: Don't Burn Time on the Wrong Order
A navigation page for the 30 technique articles. The order that saves the most effort, which category you're stuck in, where the matching article is, and the threads running through them all. New players start with New Players, Skip the Trick Shots — don't chew on hard moves on day one.
Where to Start in Stories: Seven Nights Worth Telling on Their Own
This section is about people, not eras. A guide to what each of the seven stories covers — and which one to read first.
Where to Start Reading: The Threads of Table Tennis's 140 Years
This section is about how the sport itself evolved. Here is what each piece solves, the order that reads most easily, and which ones you can simply enjoy as stories.
WTT China Smash 2026: Wang defends two titles; Matsushima takes men's crown
At the Beijing Smash, Wang Manyu retained the women's singles and doubles; Japan's Sora Matsushima won men's singles, and China took just two of five titles.
From a 7th-Place Low to Climbing Back: How China's Men's Team Dug Out of the Valley
From the 1988 Seoul flop to regaining the Swaythling Cup at the 1995 Tianjin Worlds, China's men's team walked the hardest seven years. This article revisits Cai Zhenhua's reforms and how a team climbed out of a slump by rebuilding the system — not by waiting for a genius.
Pre-Assembled or Custom-Built? Don't Rush to Glue Your First Racket
New players often stall at one fork: buy a factory-pre-assembled racket or build one from a blade and rubbers? This article explains the real difference, three easy traps, a budget-and-goal checklist, and when you should actually move from pre-assembled to custom.