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 2019 is the year for the individual events to be contested.

The 2019 World Table Tennis Championship events are...

• 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 is being used at the 2019 World Championships...

• Tables - Double Happiness Rainbow black (show courts) and T1223 black (regular courts)
• Net and Posts - Double Happiness P118 translucent (show courts) and P145 black (regular courts)
• Balls - Butterfly A40+ 3 star (White plastic with seam)
• Flooring - Enlio (Red)

2019 World Championship show court table from Double Happiness

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

Only National Associations which have taken part with at least one player or team in its preceding Continental Championships, including qualification tournaments or Continental Games are eligible to enter individual players into the World Championships.

These events were as follows:

AFRICA

• 2015 11th African Games
• 2018 ITTF-African Championships

ASIA

• 2017 ITTF-Asian Championships
• 2018 Asian Games

EUROPE

• 2015 European Games
• 2018 ITTF-European Championships

LATIN and NORTH AMERICA

• 2015 Panam Games
• 2018 Panam Championships

OCEANIA

• 2017 Pacific Mini Games
• 2018 ITTF-Oceania Championships

Number of Entries

Each Association can 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 2019 - up to a maximum of 5 men and 5 women.

The maximum entry for each association is 4 players for men's doubles, 4 players for women's doubles and 2 men and 2 women for mixed doubles; all players may be different, however, each association can only enter a maximum of 2 combined pairs (players from different associations) per doubles event.

The host Association can 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 may be from different Associations.

The first round proper of Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles will have 128 places and the first round proper of Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles will have 64 places.

Singles events will have 64 seeded players and 64 qualifiers. Doubles events will have 32 seeded pairs and 32 qualifiers.

Qualification for singles will comprise groups of 3 or 4. If there are more than 64 groups a knockout round will be played to determine qualifiers. If there are less than 64 groups all group winners and some second placed players will qualify for the main draw. The method for determining which second placed players qualify will be decided once final entries and number of groups are known.

Qualification for doubles will be by knockout.

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

Draws

Singles

Singles groups will comprise 3 (or 4) players with each group winner proceeding to the qualification knockout draw (if more than 64 groups) or first round proper.

The draw for the first round proper will have 2 stages with the first stage split. The initial first stage draw will take place on Friday 19 April 2019 and draw the players seeded 17– 32 and 33 – 64 into appropriate positions at random. The final first stage draw will occur on Saturday 20 April 2019 (separately from the initial first stage draw) when seeds 1 – 16 will be drawn. Seeds 9 – 16 will be drawn first, followed by seeds 5 – 8, then seeds 3 – 4 and finally seeds 1 and 2.

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

Doubles

The initial draw for the first round proper will take place on Friday 19 April 2019 when the seeded players will be drawn into appropriate positions.

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

Notes

Players from the same Association will be 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 will be the list published in April 2019.

The previous individual World Table Tennis Championships were held in Germany in May/June 2017 and the winners were...

2017 Men's Singles World Champion

Ma Long (China)

2017 Women's Singles World Champion

Ding Ning (China)

2017 Men's Doubles World Champions

Xu Xin and Fan Zhendong (China)

2017 Women's Doubles World Champions

Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen (China)

2017 Mixed Doubles World Champions

Kasumi Ishikawa and Maharu Yoshimura (Japan)

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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