Wang Chuqin will walk into London's ExCeL arena in May as the best men's table tennis player on the planet — and for the first time in years, he will shoulder the burden of a Chinese team that is no longer considered unbeatable.
The 25-year-old comes into the 2026 World Team Table Tennis Championships in the form of his life. He claimed the World Cup in Macau earlier this year and successfully defended his individual World Championship title in 2025. No player in the world has solved him consistently over the past twelve months.
"He's in great form coming off the back of winning the World Cup and winning the World Championships last year," analyst Ash said in a tournament preview. "Wang Chuqin remains the player everyone else has to beat."
The problem for China is the drop-off behind their number one. The team that steamrolled the 2024 edition in Busan featured Wang alongside Fan Zhendong and Ma Long in what Ash described as "basically an invincible trio." Both of those titans are gone from the international circuit.
The supporting group now is young and unproven. Lin Shidong, touted as the next big thing in Chinese table tennis, missed the recent World Cup with an injury. "Clearly a very talented player, but he's still young, he's still raw. He loses to foreign players, which is the cardinal sin in Chinese table tennis," Ash noted. "There are definitely question marks still around his fitness as well."
Liang Jingkun, Xu Xin and Zhou Qihao round out the pool of candidates. "All three of them clearly good players, but I don't think that's going to hold much fear for some of the top competing nations. Liang Jingkun, for example, has been a very reliable player for China over the last few years, but he's not in great form," Ash said.
The math is simple. Wang Chuqin will almost certainly win both of his singles matches in every tie. But in a best-of-five team format, China need two more points from their other two players. In 2024 those came easily from Fan and Ma. In 2026 they are anything but guaranteed.
"Don't get me wrong, there's still a great chance that they're going to win and perhaps they still are the favourites," Ash said. "But there are going to be some teams in this tournament who think they will have a chance."
France and Japan are the consensus contenders. For the first time in a generation, China are the hunted team walking into the Swaythling Cup decider.