Importance of Table Tennis in World Championship and Olympic Games
Olympic Games and World Championships are the two biggest tournaments for Table Tennis. Other important tournaments are ITTF Pro Tour Events, World Cup and Club Championships, which are played professionally and watched by players and fans across the globe,
with utmost fervour.
Players also have to compete in their regional tournaments such as European Championships, African Championships, Asian Championships, Latin and North American Championships and many more.
The World Table Tennis Championship is a tournament strongly awaited by any professional player. World Table Tennis Championships have been divided into two segments since 2000. The Individual events for Singles and Doubles are played in odd-numbered year,
while Team events are played in even-numbered year.
The upcoming Championship team event will be played in Germany from March 25 to 01 April, 2012 and next Individual events will be held in 2013 at France.
Zhang Jike, the Chinese player is currently the winner of Men’s Singles, while Ding Ning of China dominates the 2011 World Championship title. Ma Long and Xu Xin were the winners of Men’s Doubles and Women’s Doubles winners were Guo Yue and Li Xiaoxia, all
by dominated by China.
Team event Championships were played from 23-30 May 2010 in Moscow, Russia. Just like the Singles and Doubles events, China retained their 2008 Men’s team title.
The biggest upset of the tournament was caused by the Singapore Women's when they beat China in the Team events of World Championships on May 30, 2010. China was defending the Women's team event title since 1993 and finally lost their winning-streak after
they had to face a 3-1 defeat against Singapore. It was the first time that Singapore has won the Corbillon Cup.
The World Championship is played annually, but it could not be played from 1940-1947 because of the Second World War. Finally, in 1947 World Championship came back to the international arena.
There are three divisions with 24 teams in each division. Teams are divided on the basis of their present world ranking and previous performances in the World Championships.
Championship Division is assigned to the top-24 teams, after the ranking is finalised. Team's positioned from 25 to 48 are in the second division, while teams ranking between 49 and 72 are placed in third division.
The rest of the teams are allotted the fourth division, but only the top-24 can battle for the World Championship title. The top-24 teams are than divided into 4 groups of 6 teams. Every group has to play a complete round of five matches each.
Three teams from each group are than advanced to a knockout round in the second phase to play for 1-12 positions. For positions 13-24, fourth, fifth and sixth teams in their division plays a knockout.
Four top teams will move into the quarter-finals. Singles matches played at World Championship are best-of-five and team matches are best-of-five.
Winner of World Championship receives a gold medal for the overall winning team. Silver medals are awarded to runner-up team and the two bronze medals are awarded to the losing semi-finalists.
The first 25 years of the Championship mainly belonged to the English and Hungarian players until 1952, when Japan’s Hiroji Satoh surprised the world with his unbelievable win in Men’s Singles.
China first became member of the World Championships in 1953, which was held in Bucharest, Romania. China also enjoyed the membership of ITTF in the same year.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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