Ittf World Ranking September 2011

Men's Ranking: Ma Long, Jun Mizutani and Yan An the big winners

September 2011 ranking saw a lot more movement in the Top 10 places than last month. Thanks to his terrific participation in the 2011 Harmony China Open -where he got the title- Ma Long climbed from position #5 to position #2 displacing Timo Boll to the #3, regaining an spot in the top 2 places of the world which he left some months ago. Similarly, Japanese star Jun Mizutani climbed two positions, from #8 to #6, after reaching semifinals in the China Open, losing to Ma Long.

But by far the biggest jump of this month was done by raising star Yan An, who was able to go from #161 to #71 thanks to the excellent tournament he did in the Harmony China Open where he was able to beat world #1 Wang Hao in the Round of 16 and world #9 Xu Xin in the Quarterfinals respectively, to eventually lost against world champion Zhang Jike in the semifinals.

A similarly good jump was done by Russian underdog Alexey Liventsov, the man who was able to surprisingly beat mighty Ma Lin and then Seo Hyun Deok in the Round of 64 and 32 of the Harmony China Open respectively.

In the other hand, 2011 Chile Open winner Chuang Chih-Yuan went from #12 to #11 and he's just one position away from returning to the exclusive club of the Top 10 players, a club where he belonged during many years in the past. Similarly, Argentina's Liu Song, runner-up in the Chile Open 2011, was able to get a better position inside the Top 100 list by climbing from #99 to #92 thanks to his great participation in the Chilean tournament.

Other notorious movements where the ones by veteran "General" Jorgen Persson, who went from #34 to #28, Japan's Kaii Yoshida who went from #40 to #27 and Austria's Robert Gardos who went from #66 to #47, all thanks to their interesting participation on the 2011 Harmony China Open.

Women's Ranking: Guo Yan and Kasumi Ishikawa the big winners

This month of September 2011 also came with lots of movement in the Women's Top 10 places, where the big winners were Guo Yan and Kasumi Ishikawa, champions of the China and Chile Open respectively.

Guo Yan managed to beat her teammate and world champion Ding Ning in the final, a result which allowed her to climb two positions, from #4 to #2, displacing Singapore's star Feng Tianwei who fell 2 places, precisely from #2 to #4 due to her unexpectedly poor performance during the Chinese Pro-Tour where he lost at the Round of 32 to Fuji Hiroko.

Similarly, Japan's Kasumi Ishikawa climbed four positions from #11 to #7 thanks to her title in the Chile Open 2011 and the Quarterfinals she reached in the Chinese Open, where she lost to eventual winner Guo Yan.

Other notorious climbs where the ones by Chinese-turned-Korean Jeon Ji Hee, who continues her unstoppable raise in the world ranking from being unranked before May 2011 to #26 on the September list, and Yoon Sun Ae from #59 to #46 thanks to the good results showed in the Chile Open where she finished as runner-up.

Photo Source: Harmony 2011 China Open Official Weibo account