18 Facts About Ma Long

Ma Long is a Chinese table tennis player who is currently world rank number 3 ITTF and the reigning Olympic singles champion.

Ma Long held the ranking of number 1 for a total of 64 months, the most by any male in the history of table tennis.

Ma Long is champion in World Championships in men's singles in 2015,2017 and 2019.

Ma Long's records led the International Table Tennis Federation to nickname him as "The Dictator" and "The Dragon".

Ma Long developed his foundations under the tutelage of Wang Hao and former Chinese National Team coach Ma Kai Xuan before studying under Qin Zhijian.

Ma Long won the Asian Cup and World Tour Grand Finals twice, and made it to the final round of the Asian Championships two times.

Ma Long won the China Open at two different locations, the Asian Championships, and the China National Games in a full-stretch match against Fan Zhendong.

Ma Long then won the China Open for the fifth time, which tied him with Wang Liqin for the most ever.

Ma Long did not participate in the last two World Tour tournaments of the year, again due to injuries, but still was seeded first at the World Tour Grand Finals because he had won 3 other World Tour tournaments.

Ma Long became the fifth male player to complete the Grand Slam, and the second male to be the defending champion of all three Grand Slam competitions simultaneously.

Ma Long was the second male to win the ITTF World Tour Grand Finals and the three Grand Slam titles, being the first to win them all consecutively and the fastest to complete it.

Ma Long did play in the China Open in Chengdu, where his reasons for withdrawing from the World Cup were brought to light: he barely survived a seven-game semifinal with Zhang Jike and was crushed in a sweep by Fan Zhendong in the finals.

Ma Long won the fifth and sixth games to push the match to a seventh game, the first seven game WTTC men's singles final since Ma Lin's and Wang Liqin's legendary clash in 2007.

Ma Long has played in the last three singles finals at the National Games, the first player to do so.

Ma Long still played in the Chinese Super League, but did not travel outside of China to play any tournaments.

Ma Long went undefeated in both singles and doubles throughout the entire tournament and helped China sweep Japan in the final.

Ma Long stated that the most important preparation for him going into Tokyo was mental preparation and that he had to be even better mentally prepared than he was in London 2012 and Rio 2016.

Ma Long married his girlfriend Xia Lu, from Nanjing, Jiangsu.