Saturday, August 29, 2009
11:51 AM
World Team Cup - 1st Time in History
The World Team Cup will be held from 22nd to 25th October 2009, by the Austrian Table Tennis Association. The World Team Cup will be featuring a total of 12 top Men’s and Women’s teams competing for the glory as well as for the US$ 300,000 prize money. These teams are selected base on their continental results as well as the World Team Championships last year, where our Women's Team won Silver. The number of the invited teams was increased from eight to twelve since the last hosting of the World Team Cup two years ago. The main reason is to give a chance to the teams from Africa, Latin America, North America and Oceania. Thus the qualifiers are the top seven from the Evergrande Real Estate World Team Table Tennis Championships, the host association Austria plus the best from the above mentioned continents.

The teams from Africa, Latin America, North America and Oceania will play in the newly named Intercontinental Cup on the first day of competition (round robin group matches) and the winner will challenge the no.8 seeded team in a play-off match to decide which team is promoted to the second stage of the World Team Cup (direct knock-out main draw of eight teams).

The World Team Cup will follow the Olympic team system (maximum four singles and one doubles matches), the same as in 2007.

Ironically, the very strong women’s team, Olympic bronze medallists South Korea, did not qualify for Linz finishing only on 11th place at the Evergrande Real Estate World Team Table Tennis Championships in 2008, due to the absence of the world's best defenders Kim Kyung Ah and Park Mi Young.

This is the first time Singapore is sending a team to participate in the event, and the ladies have a very high chance of winning a medal despite Jia Wei not being able to join them yet. The previous time (which was 2 years back), the Women's Team only went there as a spectator and to understand their opponents better. This time, their target is a medal!

Below is the list of invited countries:
Men’s teams:
China (Olympic champion and World Cup title holder), Korea Republic, Japan, Hong Kong (runners up in 2007), Czech Republic, Chinese Taipei, Germany (Olympic silver medallists), Austria (semi-finalist last time), Egypt, Brazil, Canada, Australia

Women’s teams:
China (Olympic champions and World Cup title holders), Singapore (Olympic silver medallists), Hong Kong, Japan, Hungary (semi-finalist last time), Austria, the Netherlands, Romania, the United States, Australia, Venezuela, Egypt




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