In a sentence

She is the only player in the history of Korean women’s table tennis to complete a World Championships grand slam, and the last great flourish of the penhold game in women’s table tennis.

Playing style

  • Right-handed penhold with short pips, attacking with a single-sided forehand across the whole table
  • Fast, powerful forehand with many line changes and relentless pressure
  • Her pivot-to-forehand recovery after a side-step attack still sets a standard for speed and consistency

Career and key moments

At the 1987 New Delhi World Championships she won women’s doubles with Yang Young-ja; at the 1988 Seoul Olympics the pair won women’s doubles gold, the first Olympic women’s doubles gold in table tennis history (she lost unexpectedly to Soviet player Valentina Popova in women’s singles and exited in the round of 32). At the 1989 Dortmund World Championships she won mixed doubles with Yoo Nam-kyu. At the 1991 Chiba World Championships she led the unified Korean team to the women’s team title, beating Gao Jun in the final and ending China’s 16-year hold on the Corbillon Cup. At the 1993 Gothenburg World Championships, after Deng Yaping and Qiao Hong were both upset, she beat three Chinese players in a row — Tang Weiyi, Chen Zihe and Chen Jing — to win women’s singles, complete the grand slam, and reach world No. 1 in women’s singles that same year. In February 1994, at 25, she retired at her peak. In 2011 she became the first Korean table tennis player inducted into the ITTF Hall of Fame.

What she left the game

Between 1977 and 2001, Chinese women’s table tennis dominated all four events — team, singles, doubles and mixed doubles — almost without interruption, and Hyun Jung-hwa was present in each of the four sole exceptions. She was the most substantial opponent of those two decades, bar none.

In a sentence: To cut off a dynasty’s record four times is a résumé the table tennis world cannot match a second time.