Chinese player Fan Zhendong, winner of the 2019 Men's Table Tennis World Cup.

Photo by An Yuan

  China News Service, September 8th. According to the ITTF website, the ITTF world rankings temporarily frozen due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic will restart with the return of the table tennis competition after a lapse of 5 months, which will also trigger The battle for points in the world table tennis.

  Due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, table tennis matches have been suspended, and the ITTF world rankings have been frozen since April 2020.

The "Restart" series of events to be held in China in November will allow table tennis events to return to the international stage, and the ITTF world rankings will be unfrozen.

This series of events includes the 2020 ITTF Women's World Cup, 2020 ITTF Men's World Cup and 2020 ITTF Finals.

  At that time, all participating athletes will get world ranking points.

These three events will also provide athletes with opportunities to improve their world rankings.

  The points distribution of the 2020 Men's and Women's World Cup and ITTF Finals is as follows:

  According to the ITTF, since last year’s men’s and women’s World Cup ranking points are about to expire, players who qualified in 2019 and 2020 will have to defend the points earned last year, especially the 2019 champion Fan Zhendong (China) And Liu Shiwen (China).

To be precise, both must keep the title to avoid losing any world ranking points.

  In the same way, all participating players must match last year's results to ensure that no points are lost.

This has also put pressure on other top 4 players in 2019. In addition to the men's and women's singles champion Fan Zhendong and Liu Shiwen, the top four players of the 2019 Men's and Women's World Cup also include:

  Runner-up: Zhang Benzhihe (Japan), Zhu Yuling (China)

  Third place: Lin Yunru (Chinese Taipei), Feng Tianwei (Singapore)

  Fourth place: Ma Long (China), Zhang An (United States)

  Relatively speaking, players who did not participate in the 2019 World Cup but will participate in the World Cup in 2020 will have more favorable points.

No matter what results they achieve, they will improve their rankings.

  The ITTF finals are slightly different from the World Cup matches. Points for the 2019 ITTF World Tour finals will still be valid.

Therefore, in the 2020 ITTF finals, all contestants have the opportunity to include this event in their best eight results, thereby improving their world rankings.

The data picture is Xu Xin.

Image source: Osports All Sports Photo Agency

  In men's singles, Xu Xin (China) needs to enter the final to improve his points, while Fan Zhendong (China) and Ma Long (China) need to enter the semifinals at least.

Zhang Benzhihe (Japan), Lin Gaoyuan (China), Calderano (Brazil) and Boll (Germany) need to advance to the quarter-finals.

  At the same time, the remaining 9 players can increase their ranking points as long as they participate in the competition. They are: Lin Yunru (Chinese Taipei), Falk (Sweden), Ocharov (Germany), Niwa Koki (Japan), Zheng Rongzhi (South Korea), Pichford (England), Francesca (Germany), Mizutani Hayabusa (Japan) and Zhang Yuzhen (South Korea).

  In women’s singles, Chen Meng (China) and Mima Ito (Japan) must make at least the semi-finals to improve their points. Sun Yingsha (China), Liu Shiwen (China), Wang Manyu (China), Zheng Yijing (Chinese Taipei), Ishikawa Jiachun ( Japan) Heino Miu (Japan) needs to advance to the quarter-finals at least.

  The remaining 8 players only need to participate to improve the world ranking points: Feng Tianwei (Singapore), Polkanova (Austria), Du Kaixuan (Hong Kong, China), Tian Zhixi (South Korea), Hitomi Sato (Japan), Diaz (Puerto Rico) ), Solga (Germany) and Xu Hyo-won (South Korea).

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