The 2024 ITTF Macau Men's and Women's World Cups are about to begin, and a few days ago, the ITTF officially announced a new competition format, expanding the World Cup and adding group stages. To put it simply, the number of players participating in the World Cup has been expanded from 16 players to 48 players for each gender, and these 48 players are divided into 16 groups, and the first in each group will advance to the second stage of the knockout stage to determine the champion.
The Table Tennis World Cup has changed a lot, but for the national table tennis, these changes, especially the new competition system, have also made the national table tennis reap good news. Firstly, each member association of the World Cup can send up to four players to compete, but the defending champions and the Under-19 champions of the World Junior Championship are automatically qualified and do not occupy a quota place for the association. Therefore, a total of 12 people in the national table tennis have been qualified for the competition this time, that is, 6 men and 6 women.
Among them, the men's World Cup national table tennis list is world No. 1 Wang Chuqin, defending champion Fan Zhendong, Grand Slam Ma Long, Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan and World Youth Championship champion Lin Shidong. The list of national table tennis participants in the Women's World Cup is the world's top five Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, Wang Yidi, Chen Meng, Chen Xingtong and the world junior champion Kuo Man, and the defending champion of the Women's World Cup is Chen Meng. 6 men and 6 women were qualified for the competition, and the advantages of the national table tennis group were obvious.
Secondly, in the first stage, the players will be divided into 16 groups of 3 players, and players from the same association will not be placed in the same group. This is of course good news for the national table tennis, because the national table tennis players are strong, and if the two enter the same group, one of them will definitely be eliminated, which is indeed a pity. Since the players of the same association will not be in the same group in the group stage, the national table tennis has a good chance to achieve the feat of advancing to the second stage of all 12 people.
Third, after the men's and women's top 16 are released, the second stage is the knockout round, and each game in the group stage is a best-of-seven system, compared with a best-of-five system, the likelihood of an upset in the best-of-seven system is smaller, and the advantage of national table tennis will be further amplified. Obviously, from the ranking point of view, the goal of national table tennis is to win the men's and women's singles championships and runners-up, and even the men's and women's singles semi-finals, which is the strength and confidence of national table tennis.
However, before the start of the competition, there were still a lot of personnel changes, and the news of retirement came, Germany's 35-year-old world champion Dimitri Ocharov, England's Liam Pitchford have withdrawn, and Iran's Noshad Alamiyan has been given the opportunity to participate in the competition, but there is still a vacant place in the men's World Cup. Previously, Germany's Tim Bohl, Ruben Firus, and Benedict Duda have withdrawn one after another, and the German men's table tennis has once again caused controversy!