18 Facts About Fan Zhendong

Fan Zhendong is a Chinese professional table tennis player.

Fan Zhendong is the reigning Olympic gold medallist in men's singles, with his victory at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris making him the 6th male player to achieve a Grand Slam.

Fan Zhendong is a two-time team event gold medallist, as well as a two-time World Champion and four-time World Cup champion in men's singles.

Fan Zhendong's attacking style of play involves explosive footwork and powerful loops on both forehand and backhand wings.

Fan Zhendong's thick-set build has led fans and commentators to affectionately refer to him as "Little Fatty".

Fan Zhendong's continuous rise to becoming one of the top table tennis players in the world has garnered him a large fanbase worldwide, with over half a million followers on Chinese social media site Weibo.

Fan Zhendong raises his elbow higher on his strokes compared to some of his contemporaries such as Ma Long and Xu Xin, resulting in a stronger backhand-forehand transition game at the expense of a more vulnerable middle.

In 2021, Timo Boll stated that he felt that he and Fan Zhendong played a similar style except that Fan Zhendong was better.

Fan Zhendong became the world champion by virtue of this competition, and won the world championship at the age of 17 years and 103 days, surpassing Ma Long, who won the world championship at the age of 17 years and 8 months; becoming the youngest world champion in the history of men's table tennis.

On 3 March 2019, Fan Zhendong won all 11 matches in the 2019 Direct Tournament and received the qualification for singles participation as the first seed in the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships, held in Budapest.

Fan Zhendong was knocked out in the fourth round by compatriot Liang Jingkun.

Fan Zhendong defeated Wang Chuqin in the semi-finals, but lost to the dark horse champion Zhou Qihao in the finals.

Fan Zhendong was selected alongside Ma Long to represent China in the men's singles event at the Tokyo Olympics.

Fan Zhendong noted that his selection onto the Olympic team helped him focus better on his training and play better in the second leg compared to the first leg.

Fan Zhendong won the gold in the men's singles event.

Fan Zhendong won five titles in 2023, including double gold at both the Singapore Smash and the 2023 World Table Tennis Championships, where he won the men's singles and doubles competition in both events.

Fan Zhendong's victory marked Fan's completion of a career Grand slam, having now secured singles titles in the World Championships, World Cup, and Olympics.

Fan Zhendong becomes the sixth man to achieve this feat after Kong Linghui, Liu Guoliang, Zhang Jike, Ma Long and Jan-Ove Waldner.