Lin began playing table tennis in third grade. He started competing on the
International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) senior circuit in 2016. At age 14, he officially became a member of the national team at the
2016 World Team Championships, making him the youngest Taiwanese player to achieve this. He remained a member of the national team and competed alongside
Chuang Chih-yuan and
Chen Chien-an at the
2018 Asian Games, where they won a bronze medal in the
men's team event. That same year, he also took part in the
2018 Youth Olympics, where he and his teammate Su Pei-ling secured a bronze medal in the mixed team event.
2019–2021 In March 2019, Lin won the men's singles title at the
ITTF Challenge Plus Oman Open, defeating
Mattias Falck in the final. He also secured titles in the men's doubles with Liao Cheng-ting and in the mixed doubles with
Cheng I-ching, completing a remarkable triple crown at the event. In the May world rankings, he surpassed
Chuang Chih-yuan to become the highest-ranked Taiwanese player in men's singles. Lin reached the final of the
Japan Open, where he lost to
Xu Xin. He then went on to win two consecutive tournaments: first, the T2 Diamond Malaysia in July, followed by his first
ITTF World Tour title at the Czech Open in August, at the age of only 18. In these tournaments, he defeated several top players, including
Ma Long,
Fan Zhendong,
Dimitrij Ovtcharov, and
Timo Boll. Lin broke into the world's top ten in September 2019. He later reached another T2 Diamond final in Singapore, where he was once again defeated by Xu Xin. He went on to beat Ma Long to win the bronze medal at the
Men's World Cup, becoming the first Taiwanese player ever to medal in the event. After the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic, Lin trained in China alongside members of the Chinese national team and other selected foreigners from late 2020 until early 2021. His first international event during this period was the WTT Contender at
World Table Tennis' inaugural event, WTT Doha, where he reached the finals after defeating
Quadri Aruna in the quarterfinals and
Simon Gauzy in the semifinals, before being upset by
Dimitrij Ovtcharov in the final. In the WTT Star Contender event, Lin suffered a quarterfinal upset against
Ruwen Filus. However, Lin left Doha having secured the fourth seed for the men's singles event at the
2020 Tokyo Olympics. In April, the ITTF amended the Olympic seeding system, causing Lin to drop to the fifth seed, below
Hugo Calderano. At the Tokyo Olympics, Lin first competed in the
mixed doubles event with
Cheng I-ching. As the third seed, the pair lost in the semifinals to Japan's
Jun Mizutani and
Mima Ito but went on to claim the bronze medal by defeating
Emmanuel Lebesson and
Jia Nan Yuan. In the
men's singles event, Lin lost a seven-game semifinal to
Fan Zhendong and ultimately placed fourth after falling to
Dimitrij Ovtcharov in the bronze-medal match, where he missed four match points. In the final table tennis event, the
men's team competition, Lin defeated Ovtcharov, but Chinese Taipei was eliminated by Germany 3–2 in the quarterfinals. At the
World Championships following the Olympics, Lin was eliminated in the third round of the
men's singles. However, he and Cheng I-ching advanced to the semifinals in the
mixed doubles event and claimed Lin's first World Championships medal after losing to the Chinese duo
Wang Chuqin and
Sun Yingsha.
2022–2026 In 2022, Lin claimed the men's singles title at the WTT Contender Zagreb, defeating China's Xiang Peng in the final. He also reached the final at the WTT Contender Almaty, where he lost to Germany's
Ruwen Filus in a tightly contested seven-game match. In 2023, Lin once again defeating Xiang Peng to win the men's singles title at WTT Contender Almaty. That year, he also secured three medals at the
2023 Asian Championships and added two more medals at the
Asian Games, further proving his strength on the international stage. Lin achieved a major milestone by winning his first WTT Champions title in Frankfurt, with an impressive series of victories over
Patrick Franziska,
Benedikt Duda,
Tomokazu Harimoto,
Wang Chuqin, and
Ma Long. At the
2024 World Team Championships, Lin competed as the highest-ranked player on the Chinese Taipei men's team. The team defeated Sweden to qualify for the
2024 Summer Olympics. In the quarterfinals, they surprised many by sweeping Germany 3–0, but later lost to France in the semifinals. With this result, the team matched its best finish in the event, first reached in
2014. Lin went on to compete in three events at the 2024 Summer Olympics, but despite high hopes, he was knocked out in the quarterfinals of all three. In late 2024, he helped the national team achieve a runner-up finish in the men's team event at the
Asian Championships. He secured a silver medal in men's doubles alongside
Kao Cheng-jui at the
2025 World Championships in Doha. However, Lin did not win another singles title throughout 2024 and 2025. In January 2026, Lin ended a 798-day singles title drought by defeating South Korea's
Jang Woo-jin in straight games to win the WTT Champions Doha, a victory that re-established his position as one of the premier competitors in the sport. Just one month later, at the Singapore Smash, he secured a runner-up finish after having an incredible run. ==Personal life==