Wang Chuqin: World No. 1, His Real Setup, and Paris 2024
Wang Chuqin is the world number one and the reigning world singles champion. He is also the player who lost at the Olympics because a photographer stepped on his bat.
Both things are true, and the second is the reason most people first heard of him. It is also, for a site about equipment, the more interesting story.
Short answer: Wang Chuqin is 26, born on 11 May 2000 in Jilin City, and left-handed. He has been world number one since April 2026 and won the World Championship singles title in Doha in 2025. At Paris 2024 he took gold in both mixed doubles and the team event. But he went out of the singles in the round of 32, after his racket was broken.
Table of Contents
The Broken Racket at Paris 2024
He had already won mixed doubles gold when a photographer broke his racket. He then lost in the men’s singles round of 32, which is an extraordinarily early exit for a player of his standing.
The obvious question is why he could not simply use another bat. Most people own one paddle and assume a replacement is a replacement. At elite level it is not.
The rubber is glued to the blade. Regluing a sheet properly takes four steps. First you spread water based adhesive on both surfaces. Then you wait for it to go touch dry, lay the sheet down without trapping air, and trim it once set. That is not a between-matches job.
Even with a spare bat already built, it will not be identical. Blades vary in weight by several grams between examples of the same model. Rubber wears in, so a fresh sheet throws differently from one with hours on it. At the top of the sport those differences decide points.
💡 Pro tip: There is a lesson here for club players. If you own one bat you rely on, keep the spare in rotation rather than sealed in a bag. A backup you have never played with is barely a backup at all.
Wang Chuqin’s Record
The mixed doubles record stands out. Three world titles and an Olympic gold, all partnering Sun Yingsha, makes them the most successful mixed pair of their era.
His doubles partners tell their own story too. He won the 2019 world doubles title with Ma Long and the 2023 title with Fan Zhendong. So he has played alongside both of the men whose era he inherited.
What Being Left-Handed Changes
Wang Chuqin is left-handed, which is uncommon at the top of the sport. But it is a real tactical asset rather than a curiosity.
Most players spend most of their practice hours against right-handers, simply because most opponents are right-handed. So the angles a left-hander creates are less familiar to them.
The serve is where it bites hardest. A left-hander’s sidespin curves the opposite way, and it moves into a right-hander’s crossover point rather than away from it. That is the awkward zone between forehand and backhand where the player has to choose a wing under time pressure.
It matters in doubles as well, which is part of why the mixed pairing with Sun Yingsha works. A left and right combination moves more naturally around the table. That is because the players rotate out of each other’s way rather than into it.
Wang Chuqin’s Blade and Rubbers
The backhand is where he differs from Ma Long. Ma Long ran a customised Hurricane 3 Neo on that wing. Wang Chuqin uses Hurricane 8, which is a different sheet rather than a tuned version of the same one.
Running different rubbers on each wing is common at this level. But it is rare among club players, who usually buy two of the same. The logic is that the two wings do different jobs, so there is no reason for them to be identical.
📊 Note: As with Ma Long, the National designation matters. Those sheets are made to tighter specifications for the Chinese national team. They are not the retail Hurricane rubbers sold to the public. Buying a retail sheet does not get you his setup.
How He Reached Number One
Wang Chuqin arrived early and then waited. He won a world team title in 2018 at seventeen, and a world doubles title with Ma Long in 2019 at nineteen.
Singles took much longer. He first reached world number one on 4 July 2023, but the big individual titles did not follow immediately. Ranking points reward consistency across a season, while a World Championship rewards seven good days.
The Doha win in 2025 closed the gap. Before it, the case against him was that he was a ranking number one without the title that settles arguments. After it, that objection no longer exists.
The Partnership With Sun Yingsha
Three world mixed doubles titles and an Olympic gold, all with the same partner. No other pair in the sport can match that.
Mixed doubles is harder than it looks from outside. The pair must alternate strokes, so every second ball belongs to the other player. That makes movement the discipline rather than power, because two people share a space designed for one.
Handedness is part of why they fit. He is left-handed and she is right-handed, so they rotate away from each other after each shot rather than colliding. A same-handed pair has to work much harder to clear the table.
There is also a coverage point. A left and right pairing can attack both wide angles with a forehand. A same-handed pair cannot do that without one player reaching across.
📊 Note: Sun Yingsha is the dominant player in the women’s game and a serious figure in her own right. The mixed doubles record belongs to both of them. So it is worth saying plainly, rather than treating her as a supporting name.
Why Copying His Setup Will Not Help You
His bat is the most searched thing about him. So it is worth being blunt about what buying it would actually do.
The Hurricane 3 National sheets are made to tighter tolerances for the Chinese national team. They are not the version sold in shops. So the retail sheet with the same name is a different rubber, even though the box matches.
Tacky Chinese rubber also needs a fast swing to work. It grips through surface stickiness rather than throwing the ball off a springy sponge. So a slower arm produces a slow, spinny ball instead of a fast one.
So a club player switching to his forehand rubber usually loses speed. That is the opposite of what they expected, and it is the single most common equipment mistake in the sport.
⚠️ Watch out: The W968 blade is stiff and fast, and it is built for a player who is already generating enormous racket speed. On a developing stroke it punishes small timing errors rather than forgiving them.
The one thing worth copying costs nothing. He runs different rubbers on each wing, because the two sides do different jobs. Most club players buy two identical sheets without ever asking whether that makes sense for how they play.
Lion Heart, and the Reputation
Chinese fans call him Lion Heart, and also Datou, which translates roughly as big head. The first nickname is about temperament and the second is affectionate.
Lion Heart points at how he plays the biggest points. His game is aggressive by default, and he tends to attack rather than contain when a match is close. That is unusual, because pressure normally pushes players towards safety.
It cuts both ways. The same instinct that wins tight matches produces the occasional early exit against an opponent who absorbs the pace. His round of 32 loss in Paris was shaped by the racket, but he has had other short tournaments too.
That is what separates his record from Ma Long’s. Ma Long was relentlessly consistent across two decades. Wang Chuqin is more volatile and, on his day, harder to play against.
Where He Sits in the Modern Era
Three names define Chinese men’s table tennis over the last decade, and they overlap rather than replace each other cleanly.
- Ma Long holds the deepest record in the sport, with six Olympic golds and the only male double career Grand Slam.
- Fan Zhendong won the Olympic singles title in Paris in 2024, which is the title Wang Chuqin has not yet taken.
- Wang Chuqin is the current world number one and reigning world champion, and the youngest of the three.
The gap in his record is the Olympic singles gold. He has two Olympic titles already, but both came in team events, and the singles is the one that defines careers in this sport.
He was 24 in Paris and will be 28 at the next Games. So the chance is still in front of him, and the broken racket makes it a better story than it would otherwise have been.
What to Watch When He Plays
His matches are worth watching with a specific thing in mind, because the speed hides most of what is actually happening.
First, watch the serve and the ball straight after it. So much of his advantage is built in those two shots, and the rally you see afterwards is often already decided.
Second, watch which wing he uses from the middle of the table. Because he is left-handed, the ball that feels natural to a right-hander arrives on the wrong side for them and the right side for him.
Then watch his feet between shots. Still the clearest marker of elite play is how early a player is back in position, and it is far easier to see than racket angle.
Also worth noticing is how rarely he plays a safe ball. Instead of containing a rally and waiting, he tends to look for the attacking option, which is where the Lion Heart name comes from.
💡 Pro tip: If you want to learn from watching rather than just enjoying it, mute the commentary and follow one player’s feet for a whole game. But do it for a full game, because the pattern only becomes obvious over time.
What It Takes to Be Selected in China
Being the best player in China is harder than being the best player in most countries, and that shapes how his career reads.
The national team runs internal trials, and places at the biggest events are limited. So a player can be comfortably inside the world top ten and still miss selection for a given tournament.
That is why the domestic results matter. Because the internal standard is so high, beating teammates in training and trials counts for as much as beating foreign opponents abroad.
It also explains the doubles record. Instead of pairing with whoever is available, Chinese players are matched deliberately, and combinations are tested for years before an Olympic cycle.
So the partnership with Sun Yingsha was not luck. Rather, it was a selection decision that paid off across three World Championships and one Olympic Games.
Where His Form Stands in 2026
His current season answers the obvious question. So it is worth setting out plainly.
First, he holds the top ranking. He has been world number one since 27 April 2026. Second, he won the World Cup in Macao this year. Then he added another world team title in London.
Because the singles world title came in 2025, he now holds it going into this season. So he is both the ranked number one and the reigning champion at the same time. That combination is rarer than it sounds.
But rankings move quickly. Still, on results rather than reputation, he is the strongest player in the men’s game right now.
Wang Chuqin Questions, Answered
How old is Wang Chuqin?
He was born on 11 May 2000 in Jilin City, China, which makes him 26. He is 1.82 metres tall and plays left-handed with a shakehand grip.
Is Wang Chuqin the world number one?
Yes. He has held the top spot in the ITTF men’s singles ranking as of 27 April 2026, and he first reached number one on 4 July 2023.
What happened to Wang Chuqin at the Paris Olympics?
He won gold in mixed doubles with Sun Yingsha and in the men’s team event. But he was eliminated in the men’s singles round of 32 after a photographer broke his racket.
Why could Wang Chuqin not use a spare racket?
He could, but a spare is never identical. Rubber is glued on and takes hours to cure, blades of the same model vary in weight, and rubber that has worn in plays differently from a fresh sheet. At elite level those differences matter.
Has Wang Chuqin won the World Championships?
Yes. He won the men’s singles title in Doha in 2025. He also has three mixed doubles world titles with Sun Yingsha, two men’s doubles titles, and four team titles.
What equipment does Wang Chuqin use?
A DHS W968 blade, with DHS Hurricane 3 National blue sponge on the forehand and DHS Hurricane 8 on the backhand. The blade is the same model Ma Long used.
Is Wang Chuqin left-handed?
Yes, which is uncommon at the top of the sport. It is a genuine tactical advantage, since his sidespin serves curve into a right-hander’s crossover point rather than away from it.
What are Wang Chuqin’s nicknames?
Lion Heart and Datou, which translates roughly as big head. Both are used widely by Chinese fans.
The Short Version
- →Born 11 May 2000, so 26, and left-handed with a shakehand grip.
- →World number one as of April 2026, first reaching the top in July 2023.
- →World singles champion, winning in Doha in 2025.
- →Two Olympic golds at Paris 2024, in mixed doubles and the team event.
- →Plays a DHS W968 blade with Hurricane 3 National forehand and Hurricane 8 backhand.
The broken racket is the story people remember, and it is a genuinely unlucky way to lose an Olympic singles campaign. But the record either side of it is what matters. World number one, world champion, and the most successful mixed doubles player of his generation.
Ping Pong Reviewed is an equipment review site covering table tennis and baseball gear. Specifications are checked against manufacturer listings, and prices against live retail pages, before publication.
