The ITTF recently announced a series of new regulations regarding the World Cup, including prize money, competition format and invitation rules, which has attracted a lot of attention from the table tennis community.
These changes have not only affected the format of the competition, but also brought new challenges and opportunities for the players. The following is an expansion and reconstruction of the original text, aiming to go deeper into the impact of these changes on the world table tennis world.
First of all, the World Cup registration list published on the official website of the International Table Tennis Federation shows that 6 men and women have been invited to singles each, for a total of 12 people.
This figure is beyond the norm and has caused confusion and discussion among fans. The reason for this change is that this change reflects the major adjustment of the World Cup format by the ITTF.
According to the official website of the Table Tennis Federation, the Singles World Cup will be held in Macau, China from April 15 to 21, with a total prize fund of up to US$1 million.
The World Cup has a new format and a total of 44 players will participate, including players from the Intercontinental Cup or the world rankings.
The host nation will be eligible for a maximum of 2 quotas, with a maximum of 4 players from each association, excluding the World Championship Champion and the U19 World Champion, who will automatically qualify.
This new regulation means that Sun Yingsha and Fan Zhendong of national table tennis are automatically qualified as singles champions of the last World Championships in Durban, as well as Lin Shidong and Kuo Man as U19 singles champions.
Other players, such as Chen Meng, Wang Yidi, Wang Manyu and Chen Xingtong in Women's Singles, and Wang Chuqin, Ma Long, Liang Jingkun and Lin Gaoyuan in Men's Singles, qualified based on their world rankings.
The first phase of the new format will feature 48 players divided into 16 groups of three players in a single round-robin format. In order to ensure fairness, players from the same association will not be placed in the same group.
Each match will be played in 4 rounds, and the relationship between the winner and the loss will be determined according to the different score weights. The winners of the group stage will advance to the knockout stage of the second stage, which will be played in a best-of-seven format, and there will be no avoidance of the same association in the second stage.
This new competition system has brought more places and a higher margin for error to the national table tennis. In the past, there were only two places for national table tennis players, and they often met in the finals.
Now, with 6 players participating, winning the semi-finals is almost a certainty. This has undoubtedly increased the pressure on other associations, who originally had the opportunity to compete for the third or fourth place, but now face the situation of being completely dominated by national table tennis.
Overall, these new rules of the ITTF will undoubtedly bring more uncertainty and fierce competition to the World Cup. For national table tennis.
It's a great opportunity to show your strength and take accolades. However, for players from other countries and regions, this also means that they need to put in more effort to achieve satisfactory results.