Zhang Yining was born in Beijing,China on October 5,1981.She started playing table tennis at the age of 5 and at the age of 14,she joined the Chinese National Team.She has been holding the first place in the ITTF world women’s table tennis ranking from January 2003,an incredible achievement by any standard.In the last several years,she had always been at the top 3 spots in women’s rankings.The best moment of her table tennis career came when she won both the singles and doubles gold medals in the 2004 Olympic Games,in Athens,Greece.