YEAR 
The 19-year-old Swedish sensation Stellan Bengtsson was able to break the Chinese and Japanese dominance at the World Championships and win the singles title. He also added two Pro Tour titles to his resume in 1971, finishing the year as a clear World Ranking leader. Only three Asian players managed to make it to the Top 10.
TOP 30 PLAYERS IN THE WORLD RANKING
#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Player
Stellan Bengtsson
Shigeo Itoh
Xi Enting
Dragutin Šurbek
Tibor Klampar
Milan Orlowski
Jaroslav Kunz
Li Furong
Istvan Jonyer
Antun Stipančic
Nobuhiko Hasegawa
Masahiko Oya
Mitsuru Kōno
Yujiro Imano
Tokio Tasaka
Wilfried Lieck
Li Jingguang
Jung Ryang-woong
Pak Sin-il
Bo Persson
H.Bozorgzadeh
Katsuyuki Abe
Yukio Shibata
Zlatko Čordaš
Nobuyuki Kamata
Liang Geliang
Štefan Kollarovits
Ferenc Timar
Sugeng Soewindo
Stanislav Gomozkov
N
WC
1/4
1/4
1/4
1/4
R16
R16
R16
R16
R16
R16
R16
R16
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R64
E12
4th
x
x
x
8th
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
9th
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
12th
x
x
11th
x
x
x
PRO TOUR
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Description
N – Nationality WC – World Championships E12 – Europe Top 12 & other flags – Pro Tour events
Table Tennis Media 