A question that has been asked time and again (but an interesting one nevertheless).
Who do you think is the all-time best player ?

In my opinion this cannot be answered by counting titles.
That is why I pick Jan-ove Waldner and Deng Yaping (Deng is by far the best female player ever (hands down)), but I guess some might argue about JO bing the all-time top player (what about Barna for instance, who won more world championships than any other player in history) :) .

I think Waldner is the all-time best player because he is the only player who play on such a high level for so many years.

yes

Hi!

I agree - Waldner is all-time-best. Others came and then disappeared as suddenly as they came, Waldner has always been there - but I'm afraid his time is up now.

Christian

Each period had his best player
 

For the way we play TT today, Waldner seems to be the most creative and best player. But table tennis had many different periods. So the time before anybody played sandwich rubbers Victor Barna was the best player.

The period afterwards had seen many best players, one who influenced Table Tennis of today very much was Ogimura, who started the good Swedish area as a trainer.

Also to mention are two Chines players who were the kings of their time: Guo Yuehua and Jiang Jialiang.

But from the point of today Waldner seems to be the best. Let us wait for the future and the changes in TT.

Freddie

Guo Yuehua & Jiang Jialiang
 

I agree very much with what Freddie said in his excellent post. I especially appreciated his mention of Jiang Jialiang and Guo Yuehua.

The history of the sport seems to have made certain styles of play no longer so relevant today - I think Guo Yuehua would be an example of this. People who have a more historical interest in the sport, however, would certainly see him as a very important figure.

Jiang Jialiang is still widely regarded by the Chinese as a major figure, mainly because the pips-out fast-attack penhold style has survived longer into the modern era that the Chinese-style penhold looping game, I think.

J.O. Waldner
and
Deng Yaping

AW: All-time best
 

And Jan-Ove Waldner is still the all-time best!

Or do you think, the last 15 years came a player, who could get this reputation and could be a bigger legend than JO Waldner?

AW: All-time best
 

In the old history, Victor Barna and Richard Bergmann had been the best, in the middle history Chuang Tse-Tung and in the new history Jan-Ove Waldner and Wang Liqin.

To say who is the all time best, is not possible, because all decades had their own stars and their own style and development of table tennis. Sure could we say, that Jan-Ove Waldner had been the all time best, but not because of success, only because of his magic style. Waldner had been 2 times World Champion in Singles, Wang Liqin 3 times. Both would win easily versus Victor Barna (5 times World Champion) and Richard Bergmann (4 times World Champion) with their new kind of rackets and the athletic and the development of table tennis in our time. But that time thy had other rackets and the athletic, speed, spin and development we can not compare with our time. In their time they had been the best and had more success than Waldner and Wang Liqin in their time.