Xu Xin

Xu Xin (born 8 January 1990) is a Chinese professional table tennis player who is currently ranked world No. 103 as of May 2023 for men's singles by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).

He first reached his career-high singles ranking of world No. 1 in January 2013.

He is Vice Chairman of the Asian Table Tennis Federation.

He has won 17 World Tour Singles titles and has won the World Championships in men's doubles thrice, mixed doubles twice, and five times in the team event.

In January 2013, he reached the No. 1 spot in the World Rankings thanks to the points obtained by winning the ITTF World Tour Grand Finals in December 2012.

In January 2014, Xu Xin defended his title by beating world No. 1 ranked Ma Long in the finals match of the 2013 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals held in Dubai.

In addition, Xu Xin along with Ma Long and Zhang Jike won the men's team gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Xu Xin is one of the few penhold grip players in China, especially among the younger generation who are mostly shakehand players.

He follows the footsteps of other penhold champions such as Wang Hao and Ma Lin.

With his long arms and frame, he is able to more easily reach balls hit wide.

His long arms enable a graceful, unique forehand loop, with his arm almost fully outstretched.

He has also adopted the reverse penhold backhand grip (RPB), a recent development for China's penholders, allowing a two-winged attack.

He still uses a traditional penhold (Chinese) backhand to lob and push the ball with the forehand side of his racket.

More recently, Xu Xin has been more willing to counter with his RPB, allowing him to maintain aggression in the points on his backhand side.

Xu Xin's main strength is his shot variation and fast forehand loops, often stepping very deep into his backhand corner to use his forehand.

He sets these shots up with his extremely spinny and deceptive serves, and has some of the best footwork in table tennis.

He is also something of a 'crowd entertainer’, often coming up with wild, and sometimes inappropriate, shots.

He has been dubbed the 'show man' in recent years.

This is perhaps due to his playful nature and confidence in playing.

He admitted that he hopes to try to be more efficient and effective with his shot selection as he matures and carries more responsibilities.

More recently, Xu Xin has been called "XUperman", referring to his many "superman-like" moments.

These names have been widely popularized by Adam Bobrow, an ITTF commentator.

In 2016, Xu Xin defeated world No. 1 ranked and current World Champion Ma Long 4–2 in the semi-finals match of the 2016 Japan Open, but then was beaten by world No. 2 ranked Fan Zhendong in the finals.

One week later after the Japan Open, Xu Xin won his third Korea Open title after beating Ma Long again 4–3 in the finals.

However, he was deemed not good enough to be entered into the singles tournament of the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics.

At the next World Tour platinum event, the Korea Open, Xu Xin was seeded 3rd but lost in the Round of 16 to Jang Woo-jin.

In late 2017, he had a disappointing German Open, where in doubles Xu and his partner Fan Zhendong were knocked out in the Round of 16, and lost in the Quarterfinals to Lee Sang-su 4–0 in the singles event.

In the Swedish Open, he won the doubles event with Fan Zhendong, before defeating Fan, the world No. 2, 4–1 one hour later in the Men's Singles event.

At the 2017 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals, Xu Xin was seeded 5th and lost to 3rd seed Fan Zhendong in the quarter-finals.

Xu Xin started his 2018 year by participating with teammates Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Lin Gaoyuan and Yu Ziyang in the 2018 ITTF Team World Cup, beating Japan in the final.

During the tournament, Xu only dropped one set.

Xu Xin entered one of the six platinum events of the tour, the Qatar Open, seeking an unprecedented fourth title.

He almost suffered a defeat to Zhou Yu winning 4–3, but he was beaten by Fan Zhendong in the semi-finals 4–1.

The following day, Xu Xin along with Fan Zhendong beat Jun Mizutani and Yuya Oshima to claim the men's doubles title.

One week later at the German Open, Xu was seeded third but lost to fifth seeded Ma Long in the final.

Xu Xin partnered Ma Long to claim his second doubles title of the year defeating Lee Sang-su and Jeong Young-sik in the final.

The next month, Xu Xin was a part of the winning team China at the 2018 World Team Table Tennis Championships in his tenth appearance at the World Championships.

Xu earned the final point for team China during the final, beating Patrick Franziska 3–1 for China to claim the title with a 3–0 win over Germany.

At the China Open, Xu Xin was looking for his first World Tour title of the year.

However, his ambitions were stopped in his home country by Lim Jong-hoon in the Round of 32.