With the expanded World Table Tennis Championships coming into force in 2021, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) is honing its implementation strategy around the new competition format, which will debut in 2020 with events leading up to the Finals, which will take place in Houston, United States.

This was the focus of the two-day Future Events Working Group meeting in Singapore, which discussed the fine detail of the continental and regional stages of both the Individual and Team events of the World Championships Finals.

Calendar planning, Finances and Marketing related to the future World Championships Finals were also debated, while separate meetings were then held for the six continental governing bodies: ITTF Africa, ITTF Asia, ITTF Europe, ITTF Latin America, ITTF North America and ITTF Oceania.

New WTTC Project Manager, Gabor Felegyi, was in attendance alongside other members of ITTF senior management, including ITTF CEO Steve Dainton, as well as seven Working Group representatives:

• Mokhtar Toukabri Africa Representative
• Dhanraj Choudhary Asia Representative
• Sonja Grefberg Europe Representative
• Jorge Herrera Latin America Representative
• Tony Kiesenhofer North America Representative
• Graeme Ireland Oceania Representative
• Zoran Primorac Athletes Representative

The FEWG concluded to some key principles, which will be the basis for more detailed discussions following in the next three months with each of the continents, before finalising and releasing the 2021 WTTC details for all stages.

“It was a pleasure to see the work done by some of the continents to prepare for the future World Championships structure. For example, Africa had a clear pathway and excellent presentation to the group which was easily understood and for sure will help grow the game in Africa. As well, it was refreshing to discuss the competition structures in general and not be too focused on the political needs of passing proposals. This was an extremely productive meeting that will ensure we take the right steps to give rise to an excellent World Championships structure in the future.” ITTF CEO, Steve Dainton