Singles, Women

For the singles, each nation was allowed to register two athletes from the respective team competition. An additional 22 qualified through continental qualifying tournaments. There was also the possibility of qualifying in an international qualification tournament. Also, the best placed athlete in the ITTF world rankings who had not yet qualified received a quota place.

Like in Rio, the first rounds were limited to the lower ranked players. Higher ranked players were gradually introduced until the third round when the world’s 16 best ranked players joined the tournament. This scheme had already been applied in previous Olympics. All matches were played to the best-of seven, with the first to win four games taking the match.

In the women’s world ranking list, China was even more dominant than in the men’s event. Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha topped the list and, as expected, faced each other in the final. The country also took another five spots in the top ten in July 2021. Only the world’s third seed Mima Ito from Japan broke into the Chinese phalanx. It was not that easy for Chen, who lost games in both the fourth round and quarter-final. In the latter, she trailed 2-0 to Doo Hoi Kem, representing Hong Kong, but came back to win 4-2. Sun, on the other hand, did not lose a single game before the final, where she lost 4-2 to compatriot Chen.

The bronze medal for Ito also came as no surprise after she was defeated in the semi-final in a one-sided match by Sun Yingsha. The big surprise was her opponent in the bronze medal match, Yu Mengyu from Singapore. Only seeded 45th in the world ranking list and 26th in the tournament ranking list, she eliminated Cheng I-Ching from Chinese Taipei in straight games and Japan’s Kasumi Ishikawa, who were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, in the tournament rankings.