Table Tennis World Cup facts for kids

The Table Tennis World Cup is a big international competition for table tennis players. It has been held every year since 1980. At first, only men played in singles matches. Women's singles started in 1996, and team competitions began in 1990. The ITTF organizes these exciting events.

From 2021 to 2023, the World Cup took a break. A new event called the WTT Cup Finals started in 2021. This was a championship at the end of the WTT season. However, the ITTF World Cup came back in 2023 with a new mixed team format. The singles World Cup also returned in 2024 in Macao, China.

How Players Qualify

Singles World Cup

To play in the 2024 singles World Cup, players could qualify in several ways:

• The current World Champion was invited.
• The U19 World Champion also got a spot.
• The top 4 players from each of the five continents' (Africa, Asia, Europe, Americas, Oceania) Continental Cups qualified. If a continent did not have a cup, players were chosen based on their World Ranking.
• 24 more players were picked from the World Ranking list.
• A country could have no more than four players. But if a country had the World Champion or U19 World Champion, they could have up to six players.

Team World Cup

For the Team World Cup, the top 7 teams from the previous World Team Championships qualified. If the host country's team was not in the top 7, they would also get a spot. Four other teams from different continents would also join.

Mixed Team World Cup

The Mixed Team World Cup features 18 teams. Each team has at least three and up to four players of each gender. Each team also has a coach. Up to 10 teams qualify by winning either the men's or women's competitions at the last continental team championship. The host team gets a spot if they haven't already qualified. At least 7 more teams are chosen based on their rankings.

How the Games Are Played

Singles World Cup (2024)

The 2024 World Cup had two main parts:

• Group Stage: The 48 players were put into 16 groups. Everyone in a group played against each other. The winner of each group moved on to the next stage.
  • The highest-ranked players were placed in different groups to make it fair. Players from the same country were put into separate groups.
  • Matches in this stage were 4 games long (scores could be 4-0, 3-1, or 2-2). The group winners were decided by how many games and points they won.

• Knockout Stage: This is where players are eliminated after losing.
  • The 16 group winners were placed into a bracket. The top-ranked group winners got special spots. Other group winners were drawn randomly.
  • Matches in this stage were "best of 7 games." This means the first player to win 4 games wins the match.

Mixed Team World Cup

The Mixed Team World Cup has 56 matches. It also has two stages:

• Stage 1: Teams are divided into 4 groups (two groups of 4 teams and two groups of 5 teams). All teams in a group play each other.
  • The top-ranked teams are placed in different groups. Other teams are drawn into groups in order of their ranking.

• Stage 2: The winners and runners-up from Stage 1 play in one big group. If teams already played each other in Stage 1, they don't play again, but their previous result counts.

Past Ways of Playing

Men's and Women's World Cups (Older System)

The way the World Cup was played used to be a bit different. For example, the 2009 World Cup had three stages. All matches were "best of 7 games."

• Preliminary Stage (Intercontinental Cup): Four players from different continents (Africa, Latin America, North America, and Oceania) played in a group. The winner joined the other 15 players.
• 1st Stage (Group Stage): The 16 players were divided into 4 groups. The top two players from each group moved on.
  • The highest-ranked players were placed in different groups. If a country had two players, they were put in separate groups.
• 2nd Stage (Knockout): This stage had quarter-finals, semi-finals, and then the final.
  • Quarter-finals matched players based on their group results.
  • Winners of the semi-finals played for the championship, and the losers played for third place.

Team World Cup (Older System)

In the older Team World Cup, matches were played like the Olympic system. This meant up to 4 singles matches and 1 doubles match. Each individual match was "best of 5 games."

• Intercontinental Cup: Four teams from continents that didn't qualify by ranking played in a round-robin format (everyone plays everyone).
• Knockout: Seven qualified teams and the host team were seeded (ranked). The winner of the Intercontinental Cup played against one of the lower-ranked teams. The winner of that match moved into the final knockout stage. The top 4 seeded teams were kept separate in the quarter-finals.

Winners

Men's Singles

Year	Host city	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1980	Hong Kong	Guo Yuehua	Li Zhenshi	Josef Dvoracek
1981	Kuala Lumpur	Tibor Klampár	Xie Saike	Guo Yuehua
1982	Hong Kong	Guo Yuehua	Mikael Appelgren	Xie Saike
1983	Barbados	Mikael Appelgren	Jan-Ove Waldner	Erik Lindh
1984	Kuala Lumpur	Jiang Jialiang	Kim Wan	Ulf Bengtsson
1985	Foshan	Chen Xinhua	Andrzej Grubba	Jiang Jialiang
1986	Port of Spain	Chen Longcan	Jiang Jialiang	Kim Wan
1987	Macao	Teng Yi	Jiang Jialiang	Andrzej Grubba
1988	Guangzhou & Wuhan	Andrzej Grubba	Chen Longcan	Jiang Jialiang
1989	Nairobi	Ma Wenge	Andrzej Grubba	Mikael Appelgren
2024	Macau	Ma Long	Lin Gaoyuan	Tomokazu Harimoto
2025	Macau	Hugo Calderano	Lin Shidong	Wang Chuqin

Women's Singles

Year	Host city	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1996	Hong Kong	Deng Yaping	Yang Ying	Wang Chen
1997	Shanghai	Wang Nan	Li Ju	Li Chunli
1998	Taipei	Wang Nan	Li Ju	Chen-Tong Fei-Ming
2000	Phnom Penh	Li Ju	Wang Nan	Sun Jin
2001	Wuhu	Zhang Yining	Kim Hyon-hui	Mihaela Steff
2002	Singapore	Zhang Yining	Li Nan	Tie Ya Na
2003	Hong Kong	Wang Nan	Niu Jianfeng	Zhang Yining
2004	Hangzhou	Zhang Yining	Wang Nan	Tie Ya Na
2005	Guangzhou	Zhang Yining	Guo Yan	Ai Fukuhara
2024	Macau	Sun Yingsha	Wang Manyu	Chen Meng
2025	Macau	Sun Yingsha	Kuai Man	Chen Xingtong

Mixed Team

Year	Host City	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2023	Chengdu	China Chen Meng Fan Zhendong Lin Gaoyuan Ma Long Sun Yingsha Wang Chuqin Wang Manyu Wang Yidi	South Korea An Jae-hyun Jang Woo-jin Jeon Ji-hee Kim Na-yeong Lee Sang-su Lee Zi-on Lim Jong-hoon Shin Yu-bin	Japan Miwa Harimoto Tomokazu Harimoto Hina Hayata Miu Hirano Miyuu Kihara Kakeru Sone Shunsuke Togami Ryoichi Yoshiyama
2024	Chengdu	China Kuai Man Liang Jingkun Lin Gaoyuan Lin Shidong Sun Yingsha Wang Chuqin Wang Manyu Wang Yidi	South Korea An Jae-hyun Cho Dae-seong Jang Woo-jin Jeon Ji-hee Kim Na-yeong Oh Jun-sung Shin Yu-bin Suh Hyo-won	Hong Kong Chan Baldwin Doo Hoi Kem Lam Siu-hang Lee Hoi Man Karen Ng Wing Lam Wong Chun-ting Wong Hoi Tung Yiu Kwan To

See also

In Spanish: Copa del Mundo de Tenis de Mesa para niños