On January 30, the ITTF announced its world rankings for the fifth week of 2022, which have changed dramatically due to the adoption of new rules. In the women's table tennis rankings, Olympic champion Sun Yingsha topped the world for the first time, and Chen Meng slipped to the second place in the world; in the men's table tennis rankings, Fan Zhendong firmly sat on the world's first throne, but Xu Xin's ranking plummeted by 6 places.
The latest points rule of the ITTF has changed, which is based on 20% of the previous points + the points earned in 2021, and there are no points in the 2022 WTT Macau Championship.
This new rule is very unfavorable for Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen, who have not participated in the Olympic Games, the Houston World Championships, and the WTT World Cup singles in 2021, so their rankings have fallen sharply.
In the men's singles, Fan Zhendong and Ma Long still ranked in the world's top two, Hugo ranked third in the world for the first time, Zhang Benzhihe ranked fourth, Liang Jingkun rose three places to rank fifth; Ochalov, Lin Yunru and Pol ranked sixth to eighth in the world;
Xu Xin slipped from third in the world to ninth in the world, and Lin Gaoyuan slipped to 10th in the world. Wang Chuqin's world ranking has not changed, and he still ranks 12th.
In the women's singles, Sun Yingsha surpassed Chen Meng for the first time and ranked first in the world, while Chen Meng slipped to second in the world; Ito Mimako and Wang Manyu ranked unchanged, still ranking third and fourth, wang Yidi ranked fifth; Hayata Xina soared 10 places, ranking sixth in the world, Du Kaixuan ranked seventh, Ishikawa Jiachun ranked eighth, Feng Tianwei and Tian Zhixi ranked ninth to tenth.
Among the other members of the women's table tennis team, Ding Ning, who has retired, slipped 7 places to rank 13th; Chen Xingtong ranked 14th; Zhu Yuling fell 6 places to rank 16th; and Liu Shiwen also fell 6 places to rank 17th.
In 2021, Sun Yingsha won the Olympic singles runner-up, the World Championship singles runner-up, and the Singapore World Cup singles championship, and the results were outstanding. Although Chen Meng won the Olympic singles championship, he only won the third place in the world championship singles and the third place in the world cup singles, and the overall points were not as high as Sun Yingsha.
Although Wang Manyu won the World Championship singles championship, he did not have Olympic singles points, and the World Cup was another round of travel, and the result did not surpass Ito Yoshimachi.
Entering 2022, the competition for women's table tennis will be more intense, and although Wang Manyu won the WTT Macau Championship, she did not have points, but it also made her motivated to impact the championships of other competitions. Chen Meng is in a championship drought, when will he be able to win the championship again? Sun Yingsha unexpectedly lost to Liu Shiwen in the Macau tournament, and it is not easy for her to defend the world number one.