In a sentence

What he took on was not only the captain’s armband but the job of keeping Chinese men’s table tennis ahead in its most competitive era.

Playing style

  • Left-handed shakehand, with a lethal mix of wide forehand angles and backhand line changes
  • High-quality serves and a strong first three shots, imposing his rhythm on the rally
  • Elite in mixed doubles, and long a world-class pairing with Sun Yingsha

Career and key moments

At the 2021 Houston World Championships he won mixed doubles with Sun Yingsha, and the pair defended at Durban in 2023, where he also took men’s doubles with Fan Zhendong. Later that year, at the Hangzhou Asian Games, he became the first player to sweep men’s team, singles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles gold at a single Games. At the 2024 Paris Olympics he and Sun Yingsha won China’s first Olympic mixed doubles gold, and he helped the team to the men’s team title. He won men’s singles for the first time at the 2025 Doha World Championships, becoming China’s first left-handed men’s singles world champion, and completed a mixed doubles three-peat the same year. In 2026 he won the Macao World Cup, helped the team to the London World Championships men’s team title (ten matches, ten wins, MVP), and in June took over as captain.

What he left the game

He stands in a particular spot: ahead of him are the benchmarks left by Ma Long and Fan Zhendong, behind him a whole field of European and Japanese players closing in. Whether China’s men’s team can extend its advantage may well be written in his next few years.

In a sentence: Left-handed, mixed doubles, captain — every label he carries is a path Chinese table tennis had not taken before.