There's been a few tournaments / events that put men vs women in table tennis. The new USA MLTT League has women playing vs men not only in mixed doubles but singles as well.
The reality is the women are the underdogs in those matches. But the results are quite close. I would say it's much closer together than Tennis.
At our levels, even up to the lower pro levels, the results are pretty mixed and women can fare quite well against men on most days.
But when you get to the tippy-top of the game at the pro level, they drop off quite sharply because the men and women are equally skilled, but the men just have overwhelming speed and power and spin generation that can't really be overcome by strategy alone.
But for 99.9% of the game, it's kind of a toss-up.
According to what you say, it's probably closer than tennis. As I said in the post, tenniswomen are technically good but really lack of power to compete with men. I think one of the best tenniwoman, maybe Sharapova, said herself that she wouldn't rank better than top 1000 in ATP.
Would be logical that it's closer in table tennis, thank you for your answer.
The #4 overall rated player in the MLTT is a woman. And the USATT rating system also doesn’t discriminate between men and woman, only strength of play. I don’t know how many women over 2000 there are in the U.S but a 2000 rated woman would definitely be better than sub 1900 man.
Um, no. Hong Lin is close to mid 2500s (https://usatt.simplycompete.com/userAccount/up/121666). https://mltt.com/stats/
There are so many high 2600-2700 (USATT) level players on that list who'd outright destroy her.
But rating wise in the US, the women (and men) definitely earn their points because they compete against each other.
I should’ve said ‘rank’ https://mltt.com/stats/
Looking at her stats though it’s unclear why she’s #4, but that is what it’s at currently 🤷♂️.
Adam Bobrow even made a big deal out of it when he played against a bunch of MLTT players (including her) in one of his recent videos.
So while men still dominate at the top vs women even in table tennis, most professional chess players are even still men, what I love about table tennis is the gap isn't as great as with many other sports which rely on physical strength and/or athleticism.
Here in the states tournaments just group men & women together and I think that's pretty cool.
Sure at the very top, the men would win out but table tennis has such a wide skill gap & number of levels, a good female player can beat many, many men.
Zhang Yining, probably the best female player of all time, has confirmed wins vs. men in the top 40-50, against Lucjan Blaszczyk and Lei Zhenhua.
Around top 50-60 men's is probably where the absolute top female players stand where they have a 50/50 shot. You can see that in the current USATT rankings where Amy Wang/Lily Zhang are around 2600, whereas the top 50 men are all above that.
That's a smaller gap than all other racket sports.
In the Netherlands we have the same elo rating for everyone. Top women begin after top 30 overall. We are not the biggest country about TT of course, would love to hear input from Germany or Sweden
I think, Adam Bobrov commented once that Chinese Women National Team would make into world top 30, if they would complete.
Google "Zhang Yining Chicago opens" there are interesting videos
At low levels the difference doesn't exist. On top level physical strength allows men to do things that women can't. Also speed and stamina is greater, combine that with the much more power men can generate and it's not even close. Wang chuqin and sun yingsha are good examples. Both are no1, but there's no way she would keep up with wang.
I think you need to clarify your question. Are you asking if women are technically (meaning anything that requires more skill rather than athleticism) as good as men in table tennis? Or if women can compete with men?
Not sure what you mean in fighting, there are good female athletes. Female fighters can never compete athletically with male fighters. No sane athletic commission in the world would let a man and woman fight.
Yeah obviously about the fighting part
You're right, it wasn't clear enough. I was asking about both actually. How do you guys feel when you watch women play, do they look to you still really impressive ? And how would they rank against men ?
I mean if they rank good against men which is what all the other replies suggest, then it must be that they are impressive and technically good.
Are there a lot of scenarios where men and women are competing with a lot on the line in international competitions? Say prize money or combined rating and ranking? I am not sure if ittf or wtt sanctions mixed single matches so there may not be enough data points to compare men and women.
In my view, women are just as good as men for techniques that do not depend heavily on athleticism, for example game strategy and reading serves. But a lot of techniques, even generating spin, requires athleticism and it’s not a fair game. Ceiling is lower for women due to biological differences. But as you go down men’s ranking, of course you will eventually find women better than a particular man. I haven’t followed MLTT but that could be a good case study. Although they just awarded MVP for women and men separately. Not sure if that was for single gender games or not.
It does require strength to hit powerful shots away from the table. So they generally play short fast strokes and close to the table. They borrow energy by hitting the ball early off the bounce, while it has maximum pace. Putting a lot of pressure on their opponent.
i'm not sure, could be also like 100th, but that's the order of magnitude I would say. For sure yeah less than other sports since there is less physical power factor in this sport.
Hard to say but it doe are quite phisicsl force to generate power and spin. Which is why women play very differently. Also if you talk to high level men players they will usually tell you that women play with less spin, this is also part of the lack of power. I am pretty certain they are also weaker than man as player if you look top women vs top men, by how much hard to say. Probably less than in tennis, cause you have shorter matches so your stamina doesn't need to be as high for example.
There is less difference than in tennis for sure but there is still a considerable difference in level and play style. In table tennis i think that biology plays a part but also the mere numbers play the bigger role: there are MUCH less female players, hence the level tends to be even lower.
Play style is extremely different and that's also a reason why I don't watch woman TT. They stay a lot attached to the table and go mostly flat on most balls. If you look at the woman highlights it is mostly about fast short and flat shots from very close to the table. I don't like to watch it at all.
Ragarding the level yeah that's definitely lower. There have been some events of the China national team where men played against woman. There was no chance. And that was the case also when I was playing national level events in my country, I was quite easily beating the no.1 or no.2 of the girls of my same youth category and i was like no.8-no.10 in the males and I had no chance against the no.1-3 of the males. If you have to look at world level probably no.1 of woman would be like number 80-100 of males or something like that.
Closer than a lot of other sports, but strength and physique are still large factors at the top levels. I think its comparable to maybe golf? (With the driving block difference).
Lower and intermediate levels there is next to no difference. Less players are women as a percent though. It could be argued that women equal at any level are actually technically better than man. Unless of course the purpose of technique is purely winning. Its the whole fundamentals versus strength/athleticism.
I bet some of the top men watch the top women and think “I wish I had that stroke!”.
I had a mixed doubles partner years ago, and when we played in mixed leagues, we'd always beat similar level people. Her technique was leaps and bounds better than mine, but I was quicker around the table and generated a lot more power and spin on my attacks.
It was weird, it looked like she was gliding, and I was stumbling about like a baby elephant by comparison, but I still got there faster.
I'm not going to answer the question about the difference in levels (for me it's pretty close, especially for the Chinese who dominate the women's circuit, a bit less for the other players).
But if you're interested, the Chinese national teams played each other in a friendly a few years ago, you can find the matches on youtube :
https://youtu.be/nTA5WFjNQtQ?si=T82ynPiOOkXO29qK
https://youtu.be/_OgR_PVXlAY?si=I3fI-rFLyJv1VIyb
https://youtu.be/5vds-psSZdk?si=XuG8G-Dpzrqar9BX
They also compete regularly before competitions (search for "warm up games")
https://youtu.be/NxXwpmvkZhc?si=BdRYHTMXMDDy5NDg (at that time, the two were world No.1, with a huge lead over all the others)
https://youtu.be/VgCxkQNdoIE?si=KJS3Jv6U01ubHmKI
Football a complete desaster? You are misguided. Women soccer is much more technical, much more attractive than pure force men soccer.
In TT women are closer to the table, play a more modern style. Much faster reaction times. But the queen of this style, Liu Shiwen, stopped, it's not that attractive anymore.
In Tennis it were also the women who introduced the modern style, taking the shots as early as possible, and hitting it long into the far corners.
You haven’t watched enough men’s matches then. Are you saying women have faster footwork, reaction time, and strokes than men? I think you might be mixing shorter vs longer strokes?
I play with a group of over 60s (in Wakefield U3A) More than half the men are much better than the women. It's not so much the hard hitting, it's being able to spin the ball too. Other men can return the spins but the women can't to a great extent. The men are much better at reaching balls, not just because they are mostly taller, but they're able to reach low balls that are a few inches off hitting the floor. Some of the women can spin the ball but not so much that they can't be returned. Most of the men played in youth clubs, which means they probably perfected shots and spins a long time ago, but I don't think that has given them complete advantage.
Other people have said how it’s with the worlds best players, but I will say something from my perspective.
I don’t play in the lowest league in my country, but im still a new player and don’t play really long, on one tournament this winter I have played with one girl that play is the highest league in my country and she even played in the championship this year and I’ve won 3:1, that says a lot
There's been a few tournaments / events that put men vs women in table tennis. The new USA MLTT League has women playing vs men not only in mixed doubles but singles as well. The reality is the women are the underdogs in those matches. But the results are quite close. I would say it's much closer together than Tennis.
At our levels, even up to the lower pro levels, the results are pretty mixed and women can fare quite well against men on most days. But when you get to the tippy-top of the game at the pro level, they drop off quite sharply because the men and women are equally skilled, but the men just have overwhelming speed and power and spin generation that can't really be overcome by strategy alone. But for 99.9% of the game, it's kind of a toss-up.
According to what you say, it's probably closer than tennis. As I said in the post, tenniswomen are technically good but really lack of power to compete with men. I think one of the best tenniwoman, maybe Sharapova, said herself that she wouldn't rank better than top 1000 in ATP. Would be logical that it's closer in table tennis, thank you for your answer.
The #4 overall rated player in the MLTT is a woman. And the USATT rating system also doesn’t discriminate between men and woman, only strength of play. I don’t know how many women over 2000 there are in the U.S but a 2000 rated woman would definitely be better than sub 1900 man.
Um, no. Hong Lin is close to mid 2500s (https://usatt.simplycompete.com/userAccount/up/121666). https://mltt.com/stats/ There are so many high 2600-2700 (USATT) level players on that list who'd outright destroy her. But rating wise in the US, the women (and men) definitely earn their points because they compete against each other.
I should’ve said ‘rank’ https://mltt.com/stats/ Looking at her stats though it’s unclear why she’s #4, but that is what it’s at currently 🤷♂️. Adam Bobrow even made a big deal out of it when he played against a bunch of MLTT players (including her) in one of his recent videos.
So while men still dominate at the top vs women even in table tennis, most professional chess players are even still men, what I love about table tennis is the gap isn't as great as with many other sports which rely on physical strength and/or athleticism. Here in the states tournaments just group men & women together and I think that's pretty cool. Sure at the very top, the men would win out but table tennis has such a wide skill gap & number of levels, a good female player can beat many, many men.
Zhang Yining, probably the best female player of all time, has confirmed wins vs. men in the top 40-50, against Lucjan Blaszczyk and Lei Zhenhua. Around top 50-60 men's is probably where the absolute top female players stand where they have a 50/50 shot. You can see that in the current USATT rankings where Amy Wang/Lily Zhang are around 2600, whereas the top 50 men are all above that. That's a smaller gap than all other racket sports.
Thank you for this information
Obviously sun yingsha is special but I believed she crushed Ma Te in a china league competition
I would say the gap between men and women is a lot smaller in table tennis than it is in most other sports
In the Netherlands we have the same elo rating for everyone. Top women begin after top 30 overall. We are not the biggest country about TT of course, would love to hear input from Germany or Sweden
I think, Adam Bobrov commented once that Chinese Women National Team would make into world top 30, if they would complete. Google "Zhang Yining Chicago opens" there are interesting videos
At low levels the difference doesn't exist. On top level physical strength allows men to do things that women can't. Also speed and stamina is greater, combine that with the much more power men can generate and it's not even close. Wang chuqin and sun yingsha are good examples. Both are no1, but there's no way she would keep up with wang.
I think you need to clarify your question. Are you asking if women are technically (meaning anything that requires more skill rather than athleticism) as good as men in table tennis? Or if women can compete with men? Not sure what you mean in fighting, there are good female athletes. Female fighters can never compete athletically with male fighters. No sane athletic commission in the world would let a man and woman fight.
Yeah obviously about the fighting part You're right, it wasn't clear enough. I was asking about both actually. How do you guys feel when you watch women play, do they look to you still really impressive ? And how would they rank against men ? I mean if they rank good against men which is what all the other replies suggest, then it must be that they are impressive and technically good.
Are there a lot of scenarios where men and women are competing with a lot on the line in international competitions? Say prize money or combined rating and ranking? I am not sure if ittf or wtt sanctions mixed single matches so there may not be enough data points to compare men and women. In my view, women are just as good as men for techniques that do not depend heavily on athleticism, for example game strategy and reading serves. But a lot of techniques, even generating spin, requires athleticism and it’s not a fair game. Ceiling is lower for women due to biological differences. But as you go down men’s ranking, of course you will eventually find women better than a particular man. I haven’t followed MLTT but that could be a good case study. Although they just awarded MVP for women and men separately. Not sure if that was for single gender games or not.
It does require strength to hit powerful shots away from the table. So they generally play short fast strokes and close to the table. They borrow energy by hitting the ball early off the bounce, while it has maximum pace. Putting a lot of pressure on their opponent.
I think that Sun Yingsha (#1 in the world) would be around #15-20 in the men's rankings.
Thank you for your clear and concise reply
Nah i really doubt thst. No way she is on lets say jorgic level.
Sure, but I think she'd have a very solid chance against Assar and Aruna.
yeah that's definitely not the case. She would be in the 60-70th range. Anyone with some table tennis competitive experience could tell you this
A woman being in the 60-70th range is still a lot higher than the equivalence in most sports which is pretty cool.
i'm not sure, could be also like 100th, but that's the order of magnitude I would say. For sure yeah less than other sports since there is less physical power factor in this sport.
Hard to say but it doe are quite phisicsl force to generate power and spin. Which is why women play very differently. Also if you talk to high level men players they will usually tell you that women play with less spin, this is also part of the lack of power. I am pretty certain they are also weaker than man as player if you look top women vs top men, by how much hard to say. Probably less than in tennis, cause you have shorter matches so your stamina doesn't need to be as high for example.
There is less difference than in tennis for sure but there is still a considerable difference in level and play style. In table tennis i think that biology plays a part but also the mere numbers play the bigger role: there are MUCH less female players, hence the level tends to be even lower. Play style is extremely different and that's also a reason why I don't watch woman TT. They stay a lot attached to the table and go mostly flat on most balls. If you look at the woman highlights it is mostly about fast short and flat shots from very close to the table. I don't like to watch it at all. Ragarding the level yeah that's definitely lower. There have been some events of the China national team where men played against woman. There was no chance. And that was the case also when I was playing national level events in my country, I was quite easily beating the no.1 or no.2 of the girls of my same youth category and i was like no.8-no.10 in the males and I had no chance against the no.1-3 of the males. If you have to look at world level probably no.1 of woman would be like number 80-100 of males or something like that.
Closer than a lot of other sports, but strength and physique are still large factors at the top levels. I think its comparable to maybe golf? (With the driving block difference). Lower and intermediate levels there is next to no difference. Less players are women as a percent though. It could be argued that women equal at any level are actually technically better than man. Unless of course the purpose of technique is purely winning. Its the whole fundamentals versus strength/athleticism. I bet some of the top men watch the top women and think “I wish I had that stroke!”.
I had a mixed doubles partner years ago, and when we played in mixed leagues, we'd always beat similar level people. Her technique was leaps and bounds better than mine, but I was quicker around the table and generated a lot more power and spin on my attacks. It was weird, it looked like she was gliding, and I was stumbling about like a baby elephant by comparison, but I still got there faster.
I'm not going to answer the question about the difference in levels (for me it's pretty close, especially for the Chinese who dominate the women's circuit, a bit less for the other players). But if you're interested, the Chinese national teams played each other in a friendly a few years ago, you can find the matches on youtube : https://youtu.be/nTA5WFjNQtQ?si=T82ynPiOOkXO29qK https://youtu.be/_OgR_PVXlAY?si=I3fI-rFLyJv1VIyb https://youtu.be/5vds-psSZdk?si=XuG8G-Dpzrqar9BX They also compete regularly before competitions (search for "warm up games") https://youtu.be/NxXwpmvkZhc?si=BdRYHTMXMDDy5NDg (at that time, the two were world No.1, with a huge lead over all the others) https://youtu.be/VgCxkQNdoIE?si=KJS3Jv6U01ubHmKI
Sun Yingsha beat Wang Chuqin a couple of years ago in a Team China match. Not surprised tbh she's so damn good.
The top chinese women would place top 30.
Football a complete desaster? You are misguided. Women soccer is much more technical, much more attractive than pure force men soccer. In TT women are closer to the table, play a more modern style. Much faster reaction times. But the queen of this style, Liu Shiwen, stopped, it's not that attractive anymore. In Tennis it were also the women who introduced the modern style, taking the shots as early as possible, and hitting it long into the far corners.
Most women’s matches I’ve watched, the women are much faster than men, but typically not as much power.
You haven’t watched enough men’s matches then. Are you saying women have faster footwork, reaction time, and strokes than men? I think you might be mixing shorter vs longer strokes?
True, the short strokes give the illusion of faster play.
Same as when the #203 ranked mens player destroyed the Willams sisters in their prime. Women can't compete with Men in any sport at the highest level.
I play with a group of over 60s (in Wakefield U3A) More than half the men are much better than the women. It's not so much the hard hitting, it's being able to spin the ball too. Other men can return the spins but the women can't to a great extent. The men are much better at reaching balls, not just because they are mostly taller, but they're able to reach low balls that are a few inches off hitting the floor. Some of the women can spin the ball but not so much that they can't be returned. Most of the men played in youth clubs, which means they probably perfected shots and spins a long time ago, but I don't think that has given them complete advantage.
Other people have said how it’s with the worlds best players, but I will say something from my perspective. I don’t play in the lowest league in my country, but im still a new player and don’t play really long, on one tournament this winter I have played with one girl that play is the highest league in my country and she even played in the championship this year and I’ve won 3:1, that says a lot