In a school sports club, 25 students decided to participate in a table tennis singles tournament. Each time a student loses a match, they are eliminated from the tournament. What is the minimum number of matches required to determine the winner?

In a single-elimination tournament, every match results in exactly one player being eliminated.
To determine a single absolute winner from a pool of 25 players, exactly $25-1=24$ players must be eliminated.

Therefore, the total number of matches required is exactly 24.