World Rankings for March:  Largely Stable at the Top

(by Steve Hopkins/Photo by ITTF)

After an eight month hiatus, the ITTF World Rankings are back.  Fan Zhendong tops the final rankings of a very strange year.  He overtakes Xu Xin on the strength of his World Cup title.  Ma Long finishes third, and Harimoto is fourth.

Hugo Calderano  is the highest non-Asian ranked player at No. 6.  Mattias Falck (No. 9) is the first of three Europeans on the list (Timo Boll is No. 10 and Dimitrij Ovtcharov is No. 11).    USA’s Kanak Jha is Ranked No. 27.

On the women’s side, China holds six of the top seven spots.  Chen Meng is first, followed by Japan’s Mima Ito.  Thereafter it is Sun, Liu, Wang, Ding, and Zhu.  The top player from outside of Asia is Sofia Polcanova at No. 14.  Adriana Diaz is No. 19, USA’s Lily Zhang is No. 27, and USA’s Jennifer Wu is No. 32.

The 2020 ITTF Calendar concluded with over 60 cancelled events.  Event organizers are currently being cautious – with only the World Championships (Busan Korea), the Olympics, the Paralympics, and the European Championships listed thus far.  Expect to see a lot of updates in January as the ITTF Calendar begins to fill up.

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