Where He Fits

He is a rare “power player” among European athletes, and for over a decade one of the opponents the Chinese team faced most often.

Playing Style

  • High-quality, powerful backhand loops as his main scoring weapon
  • Highly varied serves, with an instantly recognizable tomahawk serve
  • Strong, physical and unafraid of hard exchanges in mid-to-far-distance rallies

Career and Key Moments

He won men’s singles bronze at the 2012 London Olympics. In 2017 he beat Timo Boll in the World Cup final to take the men’s singles title, becoming yet another European champion of that event. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics he added a second men’s singles bronze. A multiple European Championships men’s singles winner, he was long Germany’s undisputed No. 1 and traded key matches with several generations of Chinese players.

What He Left Behind

Together with Boll he carried German table tennis through its golden era, making Germany the only European men’s team able to go toe-to-toe with Asia.

Remember this: a European player who stays at the top of the world rankings for years never gets there on talent alone.