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Ding Ning

June 23, 2016

Member of the national team of the People’s Republic of China. Four-time world champion: two-time singles champion (2011, 2015) and two-time team champion (2012, 2014). Two-time winner of the World Cup (2011, 2014). Olympic champion in the team category and vice-champion in the single category of the Olympic Games in London 2012.

Until December 2013, Ding Ning participated in 39 tournaments of the ITTF World Tour, in 15 of them she reached the final stage, in 9 of these 15 tournaments she became the first. By 2015, Ding Ning had participated in five ITTF World Tour Grand Finals. In 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, she reached the final stage of these competitions and lost the last meeting. For the fifth time, in 2015, she became the winner of the ITTF World Tour Grand Final for the first time.

In November 2011, Ding Ning became number one in the ITTF world rankings for the first time.

Ding Ning plays a left-handed attacking style using a European grip.

She was born on June 20, 1990 in the city of Daqing, Heilongjiang Province in China in a sports family. His father was engaged in ice skating, his mother played for the basketball team of Heilongjiang province.

At the age of 10, Ding Ning moved to Beijing. In Beijing, she began training under the guidance of coach Li Sun, who also coached multiple world champion and four-time Olympic champion Zhang Yining. Just like Zhang Ying, Ding Ning plays for Beijing Dayang Jiajiao Sports Club.

In 2005, at the age of fifteen, she successfully debuted as a professional player, playing together with Zhang Yining and Guo Yan for the Beijing team, which then took first place in the national championship. In the same 2005, Ding Nin won the Junior World Championship in Linz, Austria, and made her first Pro Tour tournament, where her best achievement was reaching the semi-finals of the Sweden Open tournament (Gothenburg, Sweden).

In 2010, Ding Ning lost in the final of the World Team Championship in Moscow to former Chinese athlete Feng Tianwei, who plays for Singapore. A poor performance by Ding Ning and her peer Liu Shiwen in that final resulted in China’s surprise loss to Singapore and an eight-year Chinese winning streak in the competition.

2011 was the most successful year in Ding Ning’s sports career: this year she won the individual victory in the World Championship in Rotterdam, won the World Cup in Singapore, won three tournaments of the ITTF World Tour and became the first racket of the world. In the 2012 team championship in Dortmund, Ding Ning again played as part of the national team and in the final again met Feng Tianwei, where she won a psychologically important victory.

In June 2012, Ding Ning joined the ranks of the Communist Party of China, along with other athletes of the Chinese national team and the coach of the women’s national team, Shi Zhihao.

Ding Ning was included in the Chinese Olympic team in May 2012 in place of the injured Guo Yan, who received an Olympic license with Li Xiaoxia a year earlier due to her higher world ranking than Ding Ning at the time. Ding Ning went to the Olympic Games in London as a favorite. By winning the singles, she would have won the symbolic “grand slam” of table tennis, which is secured by individual victories at the World Championships, the World Cup and the Olympic Games. However, in the final of the individual Olympic tournament, Ding Ning lost 1:4 to her compatriot Li Xiaoxia. The final was marked by tough refereeing from match referee Paola Bongelli, who penalized Ding Ning three times with points in favor of her opponent for a wrong serve, as well as a yellow and a red card. Together with Li Xiaoxia and Guo Yue, Ding Ning won the team Olympic gold at the London Olympics.