Chinese Speedcuber ZiYu Ye broke the 2x2 world record single on Sunday morning last weekend with a time of 0.39, this is the first time the 0.4 second barrier has been broken and beats the previous world record single held by Teodor Zajder from Poland.

2x2 world record singles are considered to be a bit silly as it is heavily scramble dependent, however, it does still take a lot of skill to be able to start a timer, execute the 4 move solution, and then put both hands on the timer again in 0.39 seconds, since the sliding controversy of 2024, these results are also being watched far more closely to ensure no one cheats by sliding the timer to start solving before the timer actually starts.

The solution this time was R U2 R' U' which is a pretty good 4 mover but still requires some skill to execute in under 0.4 seconds, many other top 2x2 solvers there either didn't spot it or messed up the execution. YiHeng Wang obviously would have seen the solution but only got a 0.89 second solve on it, obviously he messed something up. Sky Guo broke the previous world record with a 0.41 second solve but it will never count because of ZiYu Ye's better result on the same round and same scramble.

The cube that ZiYu used was the Gan 251 M Pro which is by far the most popular 2x2 used by top 2x2 solvers, although it is notable that YiHeng Wang instead uses the MoYu WeiPo V5 now. The Gan 251 M Pro remains a very popular option.