Fan Zhendong Photo: CFP

Chinese men's paddler Fan Zhendong continues to lead the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) world rankings after having his 1,400 ranking points reinstated following the ITTF's correction.

Fan now tops the men's singles rankings with 6,900 points, followed by compatriots Ma Long (3,700) and Liang Jingkun (3,085).

The ITTF confirmed that due to an administrative error in the application of point 4.2 of the ITTF Table Tennis World Ranking regulation, a small number of players had had rankings points incorrectly removed.

Their points have been reinstated in this week's ITTF Table Tennis World Rankings and the ITTF has reached out to each of the affected players, including 15 singles players and one mixed doubles player.

The world ranking of a player is composed of the sum of the points of the best eight results achieved in the last 12 months.

According to the ITTF Table Tennis World Ranking regulation point 4.2, a penalty is a player or pair result at a sanctioned event, with a validity of one year, awarding 0 points and always included in the best player or pair results.

A penalty is incurred for players if they withdraw from World Table Tennis (WTT) Grand Smash, WTT Cup Finals and WTT Champions, and all other events at least three times, with 0 points replacing their eighth-best result over the last 12 months in world rankings.

It is applied when the player or pair compete in eight or more ITTF or WTT events. For Fan and other affected paddlers, they competed in fewer than eight events over the past 12 months, but their lowest calculated ranking points were still replaced by 0 points.

China's Sun Yingsha, Chen Meng, Wang Manyu and Wang Yidi take up the top four positions in the women's singles world rankings.

Xinhua