Just a week before the opening, preparations for the 2022 ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals are being finalised. More than 250 athletes will be out in force across the 10 days of table tennis action.
Excitement is building in the city of Chengdu for the only international sports event hosted in China this year; following the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Participants will arrive on Monday 26 September, via special flights chartered by the ITTF.
Before the competition starts, a draw ceremony will take place on Wednesday 28 September. Men’s teams will be drawn into seven groups, women’s into six groups. Placement in the groups will be based on the ITTF World Team Ranking.
Play commences on Friday 30 September and takes place in two stages, a group phase organised on the round robin principle followed by a knockout. A team match is the best of 5 matches with each individual match being the best of 5 games.
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Overall, 16 teams in each of the men’s and women’s events qualify for the knockout stage; play starts on Wednesday 5 October. Teams finishing in the first position in each group will be drawn in the seeded positions; the second placed team will be drawn randomly against a group winner or into unfilled seeded positions; additional places will be filled by the highest-ranked third-place group finishers.
The women’s and men’s finals will take place on Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 October respectively. Winning teams receive gold medals as well as the commemorative Swaythling and Marcel Corbillon Cups, runners up will be presented with silver medals, and losing semi-finalists will receive bronze medals.
The 2022 ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals Chengdu will be broadcast in over 120 countries and will also be the first-ever edition produced in 4K for the Chinese market.
A dedicated website was launched today with all information to follow the action in Chengdu: https://worldtabletennis.com/teamseventInfo?eventId=2535