Chris Yan

Fast Facts

Sport:  Table Tennis 
Event: Singles and Team
Olympic History: Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020
Year Born:  1988
Country Born: China

About Chris

Born in Xi’An in China, Xin (Chris) Yan began playing table tennis at nine and moved to Australia to study when he was 21.

He lined up for Australia at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, where he finished 9th in the men’s doubles, 5th in the team event and 17th in the mixed doubles. 

Following a strong qualification period, Yan was selected to compete in both the singles and team events at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

He went down in the opening round of the singles to Serbia’s Aleksander Karakasevic before lining up alongside David Powell and Heming Hu in the team event.

The trio faced Hong Kong in the best-of-five match series, going down 3-0 with Yan losing his singles and doubles matches in straight sets.

Following his Olympic debut, Yan represented Australia at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. He competed in the singles, team and mixed team events, where he placed 17th, 5th and 9th, respectively.

At the Australian Qualification Tournament for the 2020 Olympic Games, Chris emerged as the event winner, narrowly defeating David Powell on a countback.

By winning this event, Yan secured qualification for the Tokyo 2020 games, where he made his second Olympic appearance in both the singles and team events. 

Chris would fall in the first round of the singles tournament, losing (4) - (1) on sets against Romanian player O. Ionescu. He would later line up for the Men's team event alongside fellow Australians David Powell and Hu Heming. Unfortunately, losing both his singles, and doubles match, the squad was eliminated in the first round by hosts Japan.