Table Tennis Major Tournaments

Learn Technique From The Best Players

Play table-tennis tournaments organized by Fremont Table Tennis Academy at a great facility, the nearby Siliman Center in Newark (6800 Mowry Ave, Newark) or at Fremont Table Tennis Academy. They are normally held bi-monthly. Due to Covid-19, we are unsure if there will be any tournaments in 2021. The International Table Tennis Federation suspended all activities until the end of April, due to the coronavirus outbreak. The decision was taken considering the safety of athletes, coaches, officials and most importantly, the fans. The suspension affects several tournaments as well as training and promotional activities.

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News & Analysis in Major Tournaments

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News about Chinese National Team

China national table tennis team is founded in 1952. China Team is considered as the best team in table tennis. With 4 Male Grand Slams in table tennis (Liu Guoliang, Kong Linghui, Zhang Jike and Ma Long), and 5 Female Grand Slams (Deng Yaping, Wang Nan, Zhang Yining, Li Xiaoxia and Ding Ning).

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Top Chinese Table Tennis Players

1. Ma Long

Ma Long Forehand Technique:

Ma Long forehand technique is very special. His forehand is one of the most powerful strokes (with Wang Liqin forehand). Ma Long generates a lot of power by rotating his waist.

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3. Fan Zhendong

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4. Xu Xin

Who is Xu Xin?

Xu Xin is one of the best Chinese table tennis players. He is considered as the 'Cloud Walker' in table tennis. Xu Xin becomes the worlds number 1 table tennis player in January 2013.

• Name: Xu Xin
• Nickname: 'Cloud Walker'
• Chinese name: 许昕
• Nationality: China
• Date Of Birth: January 8, 1990
• Height 1.81 m (5 ft 11)
• Weight 70 kg (150 lb, 11 st)

Xu Xin's playing style

• Playing grip: Penholder
• Unique style: Left hand and Penholder
• Playing style: Two sides, topspin far from the table. Great lobbing defensive skill. Control backhand style, Forehand attack all the table. Great serving skills. One of the best footwork in the world.

Xu Xin is a left-handed topspin attacker! He is the only one penholder in the China Top 4 and is the best penholder in the world from 2003 to now. Xu Xin is amongst the top 4 strongest table tennis players in the world including Ma Long and Zhang Jike, Fan Zhendong. Xu Xin is one of very few players in the top 100 of the World to play with a unique style of grip – The penhold grip. The previous best penholder was Ma Lin and Wang Hao who reached the final of the Beijing Olympics.

Xu Xin's personal life

• Birthday: Jan. 8, 1990
• Province: Jiangsu China
• Started playing at 5 years old
• 10 years old: Provicinal Sports School in Jiangsu
• First professional coach: veteran coach Tang Zhixian at Shanghai
• 2002 moved to Shanghai, lived in a humid, non-air conditioned. Not easy life in Shanghai (poor).
• Xu Xin continue studying and hard work
• 2007, join the National Team Team B
• Only 6 months later, move to the first team, team A. He was working so hard, Xu Xin.
• Personal coach: coached by Qin Zhijian who happened to be a left-handed penhold player like him.

Xu Xin table tennis career

• first major achievement: East Asian Games Men's Singles in 2009
• first ever World Tour title in Kuwait in 2010
• World Championships in 2014
• First player in the line up in the finals World Team Championships.
• Known as the 'The Cloud Walker' with the quick footwork, crazy sidespin loop, in great defense
• worlds ranking number 1 in 2013
• In China, Xu Xin played for team Shanghai

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5. Lin Gaoyuan

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Chinese National Coaching Staff

1. Liu Guoliang

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2. Kong Linghui

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3. Ma Lin

4. Wang Hao

5. Wu Jingping

6. Xiao Zhian

7. Liu Guozhen

Top Japanese Table Tennis Players

Harimoto Tomokazu

Jun Mizutani

Miu Hirano

More than 200 countries are a part of the International Table Tennis Federation (or ITTF as it's called) and it is this body that oversees the hosting and organisation of table tennis (or ping pong) tournaments all over the world. Get the latest table tennis tournament list, schedule and dates for the current year below.

ITTF Tournament Structure & Tiers

Table Tennis Major Tournaments 2018

The ITTF organises a bunch of top table tennis tournaments under what is called the ITTF World Tour.

In recent times, the ITTF World Tour is divided into two different tiers; the top tier called the World Tour Platinum. Each of the tiers have six tournaments played throughout the season. The table tennis season begins in January.

At the end of the season of these tournaments, players with the most points feature in the season-ending ITTF World Tour Grand Finals.

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Each of the aforementioned tournaments consists of seven different categories of events; men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, mixed doubles and under-21 men's and women's singles. Points and rankings for each of these categories are allocated separately and accrued over the year.

There is a third tier of table tennis competitions which is now played as a separate tour – the ITTF Challenge Series. In 2019, an extra layer of ping pong tournaments were added to this by the name of the ITTF Challenge Plus. 13 tournaments were scheduled to be played in the 2020 Challenge Series.

To go with table tennis tournaments under these various tiers, players also participate in the Olympics every four years, World Championships, the World Cup and as mentioned above, the World Tour Grand Finals.

How Many Points do Table Tennis Title Winners Get?

Each of these tournaments offer different points to the participants.

The Olympics and World Championships, for instance, award 3000 points apiece to the winner while the World Cup and World Tour Grand Finals is worth 2550 points to the player winning it.

Similarly, players lifting the trophy at the top tier of the ITTF Tour, the Platinum tournaments, win 2250 points, while those at the World Tour are awarded 1800 for winning titles.

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The ITTF Challenge Plus winner gets 1100 points and it's further lower for the title winners of the ITTF Challenge title winners. Players in each of these tournaments, get awarded points at every stage of the competition, from the first round of the tournament to the title-decider.

This is repeated across the different categories of events; men's and women's singles, doubles, mixed doubles and other junior events. The rankings for each of these categories is differently done and the ITTF publishes a separate rank for all of this categories.

What's the Table Tennis Tournament Schedule for 2020?

As mentioned earlier, table tennis tournaments are divided into different tiers with the World Tour Platinum competitions leading the way, followed by World Tour tournaments. There's obviously the World Championships and World Tour Grand Finals other than the table tennis competitions on the Challenge tour which also has the Challenge Plus tournaments.

Senior Table Tennis Tournament

Find the latest table tennis tournaments schedule and dates below for all the competitions to be played in 2020. These tournaments are arranged by their start date for the current year and belong to one or the tier of ITTF competitions as can be seen from the last column.

Also, please note some of the tournaments might be cancelled because of the outbreak of the coronavirus while others like the World Team Table Tennis Championships were postponed and this table tennis schedule for 2020 is subject to changes as a result.

Table Tennis World Cup

Held every two years, the Table Tennis World Cup is hosted separately for the men's and women's singles events. They are hosted every year.

The doubles events were held in 1990 and 1992 but scrapped after that. The team events were cancelled following the 1995 edition but resumed in 2007 and are held every alternate, odd year.

20 players qualified for the men's World Cup of 2019, with the competition played in Chengdu, China. 12 of those had to play pre-tournament qualifiers with eight making it to the first round along with the eight who had directly qualified for round one.

Table Tennis Tournament Schedule

Following that, there was a straight knock-out right up to the final and the top-seeded Fan Zhendong of China won the men's singles title. Similarly, Liu Shiwen won the women's singles title.

Table Tennis at Olympics

The first ever edition of the Olympics which hosted table tennis as one of its sports was the Seoul Games in 1988. The format and the events have undergone changes over the years and the 2020 Olympics at Tokyo – before it was shifted to 2021 – was expected to have five events including the men's and women's singles, mixed doubles and men's and women's team events.

Here's all information you need to have about table tennis at the Olympics.

World Veterans Table Tennis Championships

The ITTF also organises what is called the Veterans competition or the World Veterans Table Tennis Championships where players feature in the over 40, 50, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80 and 85 categories.

Table Tennis Main Tournament

This is played every two years with the 2018 edition of this tournament having been hosted by Las Vegas and Bordeaux set to host the 2020 version in the second week of June.

Given the health benefits associated with table tennis, it is not surprising to see scores of players participate at these veterans championships every competition.

Table Tennis Major Tournaments Usa

How Does the ITTF Ranking Work?

Players accumulate points from all the tournaments they participate in, with each win accounting for some points. However, the best eight tournaments from the past 12 months are taken into account while adding points to a player's tally and points accrued from the competitions before this 12-month period are removed from the player's tally.

For the Olympics, points are removed from a player tally gradually, i.e. 25% each year. So, a player winning the men's singles trophy in 2016 will get 3000 points but only 2250 points will remain in his tally 12 months later, 1500 after two years and 750 after three years.

Similarly, for events which are played every two years, 50% of the points are removed after 12 months of the tournament ending.

Rankings are released at the end of every month while players who haven't played competitive table tennis for more than 24 months get knocked out of the rankings unless injured or pregnant.