In a sentence

Her peak did not come early, yet she defended gold twice in the hardest event of all.

Playing style

  • Two-winged inverted-rubber loop, balanced in attack and defense with no obvious weakness
  • Steady in mid- and long-distance rallies, stronger the longer a point runs
  • Deep backhand system, able to suddenly accelerate and change lines within a rally

Career and key moments

She spent years at world No. 1 in women’s singles, won the 2020 World Cup, and in the same year took Olympic singles gold in Tokyo and the women’s team title with China. At the Paris 2024 Olympics she won the women’s singles final again, becoming the third player after Deng Yaping and Zhang Yining to defend Olympic women’s singles gold, and added another women’s team title. She also won the ITTF Finals women’s singles four times and was among the first women’s singles champions at a WTT Grand Smash event. On 27 December 2024 she announced her withdrawal from the world ranking.

What she left the game

She proved that a “late bloomer” can still reach the very top in table tennis. And her withdrawal at the end of 2024 made her, alongside Fan Zhendong and Ma Long, part of the group that pushed the debate over competition rules into the open.

In a sentence: Defending gold twice in the hardest event is harder than reaching the top once.