December 3, 2025 | Paul Stimpson
Tom Jarvis has become the top-ranked English player in the world after climbing to a career-high No 61 in the world rankings.
Jarvis made a jump of 11 places on the back of his run to the final of WTT Feeder Dusseldorf last week, in the process moving above Liam Pitchford, who is currently injured. Pitchford, who is set to receive a protected world ranking inside the worldâ€s top 100 when he returns from injury, for now drops to No 80.
Jarvis will also go above Pitchford in the Table Tennis England rankings once those are updated next week.
26-year-old Jarvis first entered the world’s top 100 in April 2023 and remained on the fringes of that level for a few weeks before dropping down the list.
However, it was after his sensational run to the last 16 of the World Championships in May this year that he cemented his place in the upper echelons of the world game, re-entering the top 100 at a career high No 78.
He has remained inside the elite group ever since, and has improved his career high on three further occasions, including this week.
Jarvis, however, says that while the career high – and the imminent move to England No 1 – are welcome, he is not motivated by climbing the rankings.
He said: “I’ve managed to get a run at quite a lot of tournaments this year and put a lot of wins together in the same week, which my ranking reflects.
“But at the World Championships and the tournament last week, I wasn’t thinking about rankings, I was thinking about winning matches.
“I said to (Director of Performance Development) Gavin Evans last week that it’s time to win a Feeder – I had a good chance to be in the final in Portugal (last month) and got to the final in Dusseldorf. It’s trying to get into the position to win by taking it match by match.
“You always want to be the best from your country – and there’s some unfortunate circumstances with Pitch, which is affecting his ranking – but I’d be more than happy if I was No 2 but had made that improvement myself and was still No 61 in the world.”
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