Matthew Philip Syed is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and table tennis player. He competed as an English table tennis international, and was the English number one for many years. He was three times the men's singles champion at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, and also competed for Great Britain in two Olympic Games, at Barcelona in 1992 and at Sydney in 2000. He also embarked on a journalism career, having worked for The Times newspaper since 1999. He has published four books, Bounce in 2010, Black Box Thinking in 2015, You Are Awesome in 2018 and Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking in 2019.
A right-handed table-tennis player, Syed was the top ranked player in England for nearly 10 years. He won many titles with his usually defensive style. He reached his top world ranking of 25 at the end of 1998. He reached the final of the European Youth Championships in 1985, losing to Dmitry Mazunov. He was a member of the English team that won the European title in 1986. He represented Great Britain in the men's singles at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, but failed to reach the second knockout stage each time. He says that he "choked" at the Sydney Olympics: "when I walked out into the mega-watt light of the competition arena, I could hardly hit the ball." He was English champion four times, in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001. He also won the men's singles event at three consecutives Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, in 1997 in Glasgow, 2000 in Singapore and 2001 in Delhi, and also won three titles as a member of the English men's team in 1994, 1997 and 2000. He was also a member of the England men's team that won the gold medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
Author and commentator
Syed has worked as a commentator for the BBC and Eurosport, and as a journalist for The Times since 1999. He is a regular pundit on radio and television, commentating on sporting, cultural and political issues. His film China and Table Tennis, made for the BBC, won bronze medal at the Olympic Golden Rings ceremony in Lausanne in 2008. As a sports writer he won Sports Feature Writer of the Year at the SJA Awards in 2008 and Sports Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2009. His first book, Bounce, was published by HarperCollins in May 2010; it won the 'Best New Writer' category of the British Sports Book Awards. His style has been mocked by satirical magazine Private Eye. In his second book, Black Box Thinking, he argues that the key to success is a positive attitude to failure; it was published by John Murray in 2015. Syed is managing director of a sports marketing company. From 1999, he has worked as a Marketing Consultant for the English Table Tennis Association based in Hastings. He was one of the co-founders of TTK Greenhouse, a sports-related charity. Syed hosts a BBC Radio 5 Live podcast called Flintoff, Savage & The Ping Pong Guy. Alongside him on the podcast are ex-England cricketer Andrew Flintoff and former Blackburn Rovers captain Robbie Savage. Current and hot sporting topics are discussed on the podcast. In 2016 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Liberal Arts by Abertay University in Dundee. His book You Are Awesome was published in 2018. The publisher describes it as "a positive and empowering guide to help children build resilience".
