Fan Zhendong Equipment and Profile

Last Updated on May 10, 2024 by Alex Horscroft

Fan Zhendong is one of China’s most successful players who has spent the vast majority of his career at either rank 1 or 2 in the world. I’m hopeful that he might win the Olympics for the first time in 2016 in Rio.

In this article, you’ll learn the equipment Fan Zhendong uses, his playstyle, toughest opponents, and the top medals he’s earned throughout his career.

Fan Zhendong Key Info

Name: Fan Zhendong
Nationality: Chinese
Nickname: Little Fatty
Date of Birth: 22/01/1997
Grip: Shakehand
Style: Looper (righty)
Highest ranking: 1 (2018)
Height: 5 ft 8 in

Fan Zhendong’s Equipment in 2024

Fan Zhendong’s Blade

Having spent time squinting at screenshots from his recent matches, I can confirm that in 2024 Fan Zhendong’s blade is the Butterfly Fan Zhendong ALC. This is an exquisitely crafted carbon blade for high-level players.

I figured Fan may have made the switch to Butterfly’s newer blade, the Fan Zhendong Super ALC. However, based on the matches I’ve seen, this is not the case. In the past, Fan has used blades such as the Viscaria and Stiga Infinity VPS V.

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Fan Zhendong’s Rubbers

Like many of the other top Chinese players, I believe Fan Zhendong is using DHS Hurricane 3 National Blue Sponge on his forehand.

When watching his matches I can make out a DHS logo on his black forehand rubber. In addition, the blue sponge is easy to spot, as besides a small patch of edge tape, most of the sponge is on display.

Switching attention to his backhand, Fan uses Butterfly Dignics 09C. This is one of Butterfly’s top rubbers right now. It uses Spring Sponge X technology which is a step up from Tenergy’s Spring Sponge tech.

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Fan Zhendong’s Playstyle

Explosive Loops

Fan Zhendong is one of the most explosive players in the game. And while he favors his forehand loop over his backhand, his backhand loop is pretty formidable in its own right.

The reason Fan is able to use his forehand loop so often is because he has exceptional footwork. He’s also able to generate more explosiveness than most thanks to his powerful legs. Just take a look at them the next time you watch him play — they’re massive!

Aggressive Flicks

Although flicks are not the strongest element of Fan’s game, he uses them to great effect to attack first. What separates his technique from a lot of other players is the placement of his elbow. Fan lifts his below particularly high, sometimes to shoulder level. This gives him a lot of space to use his elbow as a pivot, generating exemplary speed and spin.

I’ve also noticed he uses forehand flicks a fair amount too. However, he seems to use these more to catch his opponent off-guard. They are not particularly fast, and usually to the backhand.

Cohesive Serves

Many players lean on one serve in matches, but not Fan. He uses both his pendulum and reverse pendulum quite a lot. I love this serve pairing. It covers both clockwise rotating sidespin and anti-clockwise rotating sidespin.

As such, with just these two serves, Fan can create whatever spin he likes. This makes it easier to exploit any weaknesses his opponents may have when it comes to their service return.

Fan Zhendong in Action!

Fan Zhendong’s Career

Records From an Early Age

Fan showed promise from an early age which led to him becoming the youngest member of the Chinese National Table Tennis Team when he joined at just 16. In the same year, he swept a range of medals at the World Junior Championships, taking home three golds and one silver.

Incredibly, it would take him just over a year to break into the top 10. By 2014, he was top 5 worldwide, and he began winning many big competitions. Among them was his win at the World Table Tennis Championships in 2014, making him the youngest player ever to take home a gold. He would later go on to become the youngest winner of the ITTF World Tour Grand Finals as well.

The Long Reign as World Number 1

After sitting in second place for 2 ½ years, Fan finally became world number 1 for the first time in April 2018. He would maintain this ranking, (barring a few months where he fell to second), for a staggering six years.

During this time he would make a play for his first grand slam, having already obtained the first gold medal in his 2016 World Cup win. Fan was successful, winning the singles event at the World Championships, on two occasions in fact, in 2021 and 2023. However, he couldn’t quite get the gold medal in the singles at the Olympics, losing 4-2 to his fellow countryman Ma Long.

Fan Zhendong’s Toughest Opponents

Fan Zhendong vs. Ma Long

There’s only one player I could find who Fan has a negative record against and that’s the greatest table tennis player of all time, Ma Long.

Being the two top players in the world for some time, it’s no surprise they met often. Fan’s win rate sits at 36% which is pretty good, but if we zoom in on his recent performances, the trend is a little different.

If we look at their matches spanning the last four years, Fan is actually leading 3 matches to 2. So as things stand, when they meet it could go either way.

Fan Zhendong vs. Xu Xin

Xu Xin and Fan Zhendong have played almost as many times as Fan and Ma have, and their record is mighty close. Fan narrowly edges it with a 51% win rate. But again, looking at more recent results shows a trend. Since 2016, Fan has won eight out of eleven of their matches. On the other hand, Xu Xin has won eight out of eleven of their first matches. A major contributor to this is that Fan was a teenager at the time, so lacked experience.

Fan Zhendong vs. Dimitrij Ovtcharov

While Marcos Freitas and Alexis Lebrun have a 50% win record against Fan, they have only played him twice which is a rather small sample size. Ovtcharov, on the other hand, has faced Fan on eight occasions, winning three of them.

Opponents	Wins	Losses	Win Rate
Ma Long	14	23	37%
Marcos Freitas	1	1	50%
Alexis Lebrun	1	1	50%
Xu Xin	18	17	51%
Dimitrij Ovtcharov	5	3	63%
Patrick Franziska	4	2	67%
Lin Gaoyuan	10	4	71%
Tomokazu Harimoto	5	2	71%

Data taken from Ratings Central & Table Tennis Reference (as of May 2024)

Fan Zhendong’s Medals

🏆 Olympics — 1x gold, 1x silver (Singles, Team)

🏆 World Championships — 9x gold, 2x silver, 2x bronze (Singles, Doubles, Team, Mixed Doubles)

🏆 World Cup — 8x gold, 1x silver (Singles, Team, Mixed Team)

🏆 WTT Cup Finals — 1x gold, 1x silver (Singles)

🏆 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals — 3x gold, 2x silver, 1x bronze (Singles, Doubles)

🏆 Asian Games — 5x gold, 3x silver (Singles, Doubles, Team)

🏆 Asian Championships — 11x gold, 2x silver, 2x bronze (Singles, Doubles, Team, Mixed Doubles)

🏆 Asian Cup — 2x gold, 3x silver (Singles)

🏆 World Junior Championships — 3x gold, 1x silver (Singles, Doubles, Team, Mixed Doubles)

🏆 Youth Olympic Games — 2x gold (Singles, Mixed Team)

🏆 Asian Youth Games — 1x gold (Singles)

🏆 Asian Junior Championships — 3x gold (Singles, Doubles, Team)

Closing Thoughts

Fan Zhendong is a powerful looper who uses DHS Hurricane 3 National Blue Sponge on his forehand, and Butterfly Dignics 09C on his backhand. As for his blade, he uses his signature blade, the Fan Zhendong ALC.

With 19 gold medals at major events to his name, he is one of the most successful players of all time, and given his age, he likely has many fruitful years ahead of him.

*Fan Zhendong Images provided by XIAOYU TANG under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license | unedited