The 2024 ITTF Men's and Women's World Cup will be held from April 15 to 21 at the Galaxy Arena in Macau, China. On the 8th, the ITTF announced that the number of participants in this event has increased significantly compared to the past, and the competition system has also undergone new changes.

　　The number of participants in the ITTF Men's and Women's World Cup will increase from 16 to 48. Among them, 46 players have qualified through various continental cups or world rankings. Each national and regional association can send up to 4 players to participate, but the previous champion and the World Youth Championship U19 (under 19 years old) champion are automatically qualified to participate and do not occupy the association's quota. The ITTF stated that the purpose of expanding the scale of participation is to allow more outstanding players to have the opportunity to participate, and at the same time encourage young players to enter the World Cup stage as soon as possible.

　　The last ITTF individual World Cup was held in Weihai, Shandong in 2020. Chinese team players Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng won the men's and women's World Cup championships respectively. In this event, the Chinese men's team sent Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin, Ma Long, Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan and World Youth Championship champion Lin Shidong to participate in the men's World Cup competition; the Chinese women's team currently ranks among the top five in the world, including Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, Wang Yidi, Chen Meng and Chen Xingtong. , and World Youth Championship champion Kuaiman will participate in the Women's World Cup.

　　The ITTF Men's and Women's World Cup competitions will be divided into two stages, and the competition system has undergone new changes. The first stage is the group stage. Players are divided into 16 groups of 3 people for a round robin competition. Seeds No. 1 to No. 4 are included in the first to fourth groups respectively; seeds No. 5 to 16 are assigned to groups by drawing lots of 4 people. For example, seeds No. 5 to No. 8 are drawn to determine the draws for the fifth to eighth groups. Bit. The remaining players will be divided into groups of 4 in a snake-shaped draw to determine their spots. Players from the same association will not be assigned to the same group.

　　In the group stage, each game must be played for 4 rounds (possible scores are 4:0, 3:1 or 2:2). The final ranking of the group is determined based on the winning or losing relationship between the players. There are 16 top players in each group. Players enter the knockout stage. The ITTF stated that each group has only one qualifying place. For the participating players, every round and even every point in the group stage is crucial, which adds more excitement and suspense to the game.

　　In the knockout stage, the competition adopts a best-of-seven game system. The win or loss in a single game will directly determine whether the players can go further.

　　The first ITTF Men's and Women's World Cups were held in 1980 and 1996 respectively, both held in Hong Kong, China. The Chinese team is the team that has won the most championships in these two events.

　　(Our reporter Sun Longfei, People’s Daily)