Ding Song (; born 1971) is a former male

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

player, he is famous due to his eccentric "modern defensive" style. He is best known for defeating Swedish former world champion Peter Karlsson in the men's team final of the

World Table Tennis Championships The World Table Tennis Championships are table tennis competitions sanctioned by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). The World Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957. Five individual events, which include men ...

in 1995, thereby securing China's final victory. He also made it to the men's singles semifinals before eventually losing to teammate

Kong Linghui Kong Linghui (; born October 18, 1975) is a retired Chinese table tennis player. He competed in the 1996 Summer Olympics, as well as in the 2000 Summer Olympics and the 2004 Summer Olympics. Kong is a 76th generation descendant of Confucius. ...

, who is skilled in defeating defensive players. Ding Song is distinguished from other "traditional" defensive players by his unreasonably frequent and powerful

counterattack A counterattack is a tactic employed in response to an attack, with the term originating in "Military exercise, war games". The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy during attack, while the specific objecti ...

s, almost as aggressive as offensive players', although sometimes he also confuses his opponents with oddly spinning chops just like other choppers. He retired from the Chinese team after the 1997 WTTC. After playing in German leagues for a few years, Ding Song returned to China in 2003 and played in the

China Table Tennis Super League China Table Tennis Super League (, CTTSL) is the top table tennis division under the Chinese Table Tennis Association. The last finisher of the CTTSL will be relegated to the China Table Tennis Jia League A Group. The top two finishers of the J ...

till 2007. He enrolled in

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) is a public university in Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 98 ...

in 2006, majoring in

human resource management Human resource management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the effective and efficient management of people in a company or organization such that they help their business gain a competitive advantage. It is designed to maximize e ...

. In June 2009 he received a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

, and started working in SJTU as the coach of the university's team. He is not to be confused with Ding Sǒng 丁悚 (1891–1972), the famous Chinese cartoonist: see :zh:丁悚.

References

1971 births Living people Chinese male table tennis players Table tennis players from Shanghai {{PRChina-tabletennis-bio-stub

See also

References