On September 16, Beijing time, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) released the Week 38 World Rankings of 2025. In the men’s singles, Wang Chuqin and Hugo Calderano returned to the world No.1 and No.3 positions respectively, while Lin Shidong and Tomokazu Harimoto dropped to No.2 and No.4. Lin Gaoyuan slid further down, falling out of the top 30. In the women’s singles, Sun Yingsha continues to hold a commanding lead over the field, remaining the only player with over 10,000 points. Wang Manyu, who follows her, has seen a slight increase in points, but the gap between her and Sun Yingsha remains huge. Detailed breakdown below.
This ranking update was mainly influenced by the expiration of points from last year’s and this year’s WTT Macao Champions and the addition of new points. Last year’s men’s singles champion Lin Shidong underperformed this time, stopping at the quarterfinals (losing to Denmark’s Jonathan Groth Lind), while last year’s semifinalist Wang Chuqin (who had lost to Lin Shidong then) claimed the title this year. As a result, Lin’s points decreased while Wang’s increased, leading to a swap in their rankings.
It is worth noting, however, that although Wang Chuqin has returned to the men’s singles world No.1 position, he only leads Lin Shidong by 50 points. The gap is extremely small, and just one tournament could easily reverse their positions again.
A similar situation occurred with Hugo Calderano and Tomokazu Harimoto. Last year, Hugo did not participate in the WTT Macao Champions, while Harimoto was eliminated in the second round (round of 16), earning only 90 points — too few to be included among his eight valid results. This year, Hugo reached the final in Macao and earned silver, boosting his points. Harimoto, however, lost in the first round and only gained 15 points, which again were insufficient to count toward his valid results. Consequently, Harimoto’s total points remained unchanged, but Hugo overtook him by 50 points and climbed to third, while Harimoto fell to fourth.
Aside from the four players mentioned above, there were no changes among the rest of the men’s singles top 10. The latest rankings are as follows:
Wang Chuqin
Lin Shidong
Hugo Calderano
Tomokazu Harimoto
Truls Möregårdh
Liang Jingkun
Alexis Lebrun
Benedikt Duda
Xiang Peng
Darko Jorgić
Meanwhile, China’s Lin Gaoyuan — who has shown a decline in form and missed several international competitions recently — has dropped to world No.31.
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On the women’s side, Sun Yingsha, who won both last year’s and this year’s WTT Macao Champions, saw no change in points. Wang Manyu, who was a semifinalist last year and finished runner-up this year, added 350 points, but still trails Sun by as many as 3,950 points.
Compared to ranking points, Wang Manyu may be even more concerned about the gap in actual results. Up until this year, she had one singles world title (the 2021 World Championships), while Sun Yingsha had two (the 2023 World Championships and the 2024 World Cup). Now Sun has accumulated four singles crowns in major events (winning both the 2025 World Championships and World Cup), while Wang Manyu has failed to make progress.
Moreover, in recent key finals — at the Doha World Championships, the WTT Swedish Grand Smash, and the WTT Macao Champions — Wang Manyu has all lost to Sun Yingsha. Though the scorelines, like their ranking points, might appear close, the gap between them has clearly become undeniable.
Aside from Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu, the women’s singles top 10 remain unchanged as well:
Sun Yingsha
Wang Manyu
Chen Xingtong
Kuai Man
Wang Yidi
Miwa Harimoto
Zhu Yuling
Mima Ito
Chen Yi
Satsuki Odo
Compared with the men’s singles, the women’s singles competition is slightly less intense, so the overall structure of the world rankings is relatively more stable.
Since the WTT Champions only features singles events, doubles rankings were unaffected this week. The three doubles world No.1 pairs remain unchanged:
Lin Shidong / Kuai Man
Wang Manyu / Kuai Man
The Lebrun brothers (Alexis & Félix)
According to the schedule, the ITTF will host the WTT Beijing Grand Smash in China from September 25 to October 5. All five events will be contested, and the champions will each earn as many as 2,000 points — equal to the Olympics and World Championships, and double that of the WTT Champions. So who will emerge as the ultimate winners this time? Let’s wait and see — come on, Team China!
