(by Steve Hopkins)
The ITTF rankings after the singles events in Paris have seen a number of top players enjoying an Olympic-sized bounce. China’s Wang Chuqin, who was upset early, remains in the No. 1 position. Olympic Champion Fan Zhendong, moved up two slots to regain the No. 2 position. Hugo Calderano has moved up three spots to No. 3. Liang Jingkun drops two spots to No. 4. Felix Lebrun is fifth, Ma Long is now 6th, and Lin Yun-Ju is 7th. Lin Gaoyuan is No. 8 and Tomokazu Harimoto is 9th. The Silver Medal went to Truls Moregard last week – and his jump this week was 16 spots all the way up to No. 10.
Egypt’s Omar Assar moved up 5 spots on the strength of his performance – he is now No. 17. Kirill Gerassimenko also had a big jump, moving up 9 spots to No. 37. And Anders Lind saw movement of 12 spots – now No. 50 in the World. But none of those jumps was as significant as the Olympic-Sized bounce enjoyed by USA’s Kanak Jha who’s Top 16 finish resulted in 50 spaced in the Rankings – moving all the way up to No. 70. Kanak Jha is once again the USA’s top ranked player.
There is less movement on the women’s side. Olympic Champ Chen Meng moves up two slots to No. 2. The rest of the top 10 is basically the same as a week ago – Manyu, Yidi, Hayata, Xingtong, Yubin, Harimoto, Ito, I-Ching.
Puerto Rico’s Adriana Diaz, at No. 11, is the top ranked non-Asian player. Bernadette Szocs is the top Euro player at No. 13. USA’s Lily Zhang is up two spots to No. 27. USA’s Amy Wang is also up two spots – now No. 34.
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