Matthew Syed

Matthew Philip Syed
Born	(1970-11-02) 2 November 1970 Reading
Nationality	English
Occupation	Sportscaster

Matthew Philip Syed (born 2 November 1970) is a British journalist, author and broadcaster. He has worked for The Times newspaper since 1999. He has published two books, Bounce in 2010, and Black Box Thinking in 2015.

Prior to his journalistic career, Syed 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 (in 1997, 2000 and 2001), and also competed for Great Britain in two Olympic Games, at Barcelona in 1992 and at Sydney in 2000.

Early life

Syed was born in Reading. His father, Abbas Syed, is a Pakistani emigrant to Britain who converted from Shia Islam to Christianity, and his mother is Welsh.

He attended the Maiden Erlegh School in Earley near Reading, then studied at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with a prizewinning first class degree in PPE in 1995.

Sporting career

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. His 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 Dmitri Masunow. 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 (2011). 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.

Politics

Syed stood as the Labour candidate in the 2001 UK General Election in Wokingham coming third in a safe Conservative seat. Syed won a place on the Labour Party's shortlist to succeed Ashok Kumar for the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency in the 2010 UK General Election. However, the party selected Tom Blenkinsop, who had worked in Kumar's constituency office for six years.

External links

• Official website
• Erik Lindh vs. Mattew Syed – Sear's International Challenge – Video