Why they rank here
The greatest European player since Waldner, Timo Boll carried the continent's hopes for over two decades with elegant, spin-rich all-court play. He reached world number one on multiple occasions, the first European to do so in years, and won a record number of European Championship singles titles along with two World Cup crowns in 2002 and 2005. Against the Chinese wall he could never quite claim a World Championship or Olympic singles title, the defining absence in his record, but he pushed the very best to the limit and won Olympic team medals for Germany across four Games. Admired for his sportsmanship and longevity, competing at the top past age 40, he was the standard-bearer for non-Chinese table tennis in the modern era.
Career profile
Each bar shows how this athlete compares with the strongest in our all-time list for that metric.