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.

The two finalists were the same as in Tokyo three years before. Chen Meng successfully defended her title, defeating world No.1 Sun Yingsha in a thrilling final. The second seed emerged victorious, joining an elite group of players to win back-to-back Olympic table tennis gold medals, after fellow Chinese players Deng Yaping (1992, 1996) and Zhang Yining (2004, 2008). Hina Hayata secured the bronze medal for Japan, defeating Sin Yu-Bin of South Korea. This marked the second consecutive Olympics with a Japanese player on the women’s singles podium, following Mima Ito’s bronze medal in Tokyo 2020.

Starting in 1988, this was the tenth addition of the Olympic women’s singles, and was also the tenth Chinese gold in this discipline. Typical of the Asian dominance, seven of the best eight ranked players in Paris came from Asia. Silver medalist Sun Yingsha won a gold medal in the mixed pairs event. The 51-year-old China born Luxembourgian Xia Lian Ni participated in her sixth Olympics. The 58-year-old Chilean Tania Zeng made her Olympic début in Paris, almost four decades after missing out on being selected for China at Los Angeles 1984.