The World Table Tennis Championships first took place in 1926 in London, England. However, since the year 2000, the Championship has been split into two separate competitions.

Team events are now held in even numbered years, whilst individual events (singles and doubles) are held in odd numbered years.

So 2017 was the year for the individual events to be contested.

The 2017 World Table Tennis Championship events were...

• Men's Singles - for the St Bride Vase
• Women's Singles - for the Geist Prize
• Men's Doubles - for the Iran Cup
• Women's Doubles - for the W. J. Pope Trophy
• Mixed Doubles - for the Heydusek Prize

The St. Bride Vase was donated by C.Corti Woodcock in 1929, a member of the exclusive St. Bride Table Tennis Club in London, in honour of Fred Perry winning the title at the 1929 World Championships in Budapest.

The Geist Prize was donated in 1931 by Dr. Gaspar Geist, President of the Hungarian TTA.

The Iran Cup was presented at the 1947 World Championships by the Shah of Iran.

The W.J. Pope Trophy was donated in 1948 by W.J. Pope of England who was the ITTF Honorary General Secretary.

The Heydusek Cup was donated in 1948 by Zdenek Heydusek, Secretary of the Czechoslovakia Association.

The following equipment was used at the 2017 World Championships...

• Tables - Double Happiness (Black playing surface)
• Net and Posts - Double Happiness
• Balls - Nittaku 40+ 3 star (White plastic)
• Flooring - Gerflor Taraflex (Red)

2017 World Championship show court table from Double Happiness

Players could only be entered into the competition by their National Association.

Only those Associations whose membership subscriptions have been paid up to and including 2016 AND who took part with at least one player or team in its preceding Continental Championships, including qualification tournaments, or Continental Games, were eligible to enter players into the World Championships.

These events were as follows:

• 2015 ITTF-Asian Championships, Pattaya (THA) – September 2015
• 2015 ITTF-North American Championships, Westchester (USA) – September 2015
• 2016 ITTF-Latin American Championships, San Juan (PUR) – February 2016
• 2016 ITTF-Oceania Championships, Bendigo (AUS) – March 2016
• 2016 ITTF-European Championships, Budapest (HUN) – October 2016
• 2016 ITTF-African Championships, Agadir (MAR) – October 2016

Number of Entries

Each association could enter 3 men and 3 women players in each singles events - plus one additional player ranked in the top 100 and one additional player ranked in the top 20 of the ITTF world ranking list issued in January of the year of the Championships - up to a maximum of 5 men and 5 women.

The maximum entry for each association was 2 men's doubles, 2 women's doubles and 2 mixed doubles - but all players could be different.

The host Association could enter up to 6 men and 6 women in each singles event, 3 men's doubles, 3 women's doubles and 3 mixed doubles regardless of ranking.

In doubles events, both players could be from different Associations.

Associations who merit additional entries in singles events

The following Associations were eligible to enter more than three men and 3 women players in each singles events based on the January 2017 ITTF World Ranking...

The first round proper of Men's Singles, Women's Singles and Mixed Doubles had 128 places and the first round proper of Men's and Women's Doubles had 64 places.

Singles events had 64 seeded players, 32 direct entries and 32 qualifiers. Doubles events had 32 seeded pairs, 16 direct entries and 16 qualifiers.

Qualification for singles initially comprised groups followed by knockout rounds. Qualification for doubles will be by knockout.

All singles matches will be the best of 7 games.

Doubles matches will be the best of 5 games in the qualification matches and best of 7 games in the main draw.

Draws

Singles

Singles groups comprised 3 or 4 players, with each group winner proceeding to the qualification knockout draw or first round proper.

The draw for the first round proper had 2 stages with the first stage split. The initial first stage draw took place on May 27 and drew the players seeded 17–32 and 33-64 into appropriate positions at random. The final first stage draw occurred on May 28 (but separately from the initial first stage draw) when seeds 1–16 were drawn. Seeds 9–16 were drawn first, followed by seeds 5–8, then seeds 3–4 and finally seeds 1 and 2.

The second stage draws of direct entries and qualifiers was drawn following the completion of the qualification rounds and was drawn at random into the remaining 64 positions.

Doubles

The initial draw for the first round proper took place on May 27 when the seeded pairs were drawn at random into appropriate positions.

The second stage draws of direct entries and qualifiers were drawn following the completion of the qualification rounds and drawn at random into the remaining 32 positions.

Notes

Players from the same Association were separated only in preliminary rounds and groups and in the first round of the draw, but not in further rounds.

The World Ranking list used for seeding and for the draws was the list published in May 2017.

The previous individual World Table Tennis Championships were held in Suzhou, China in April/May 2015 and the winners were...

2015 Men's Singles World Champion

Ma Long (China)

2015 Women's Singles World Champion

Ding Ning (China)

2015 Men's Doubles World Champions

Zhang Jike and Xu Xin (China)

2015 Women's Doubles World Champions

Zhu Yuling and Liu Shiwen (China)

2015 Mixed Doubles World Champions

Yang Haeun (South Korea) and Xu Xin (China)

Liebherr is a leading manufacturer of construction machinery and mining equipment, but also supplies innovative user-oriented products and services in many other fields such as aerospace and transportation technology as well as domestic appliances.

The Liebherr Group of Companies employs about 38,000 people in over 130 companies worldwide.

The results are here...

• Men's Singles Event Results here
• Women's Singles Event Results here
• Men's Doubles Event Results here
• Women's Doubles Event Results here
• Mixed Doubles Event Results here