TABLE TENNIS Preview: Men’s World Cup starts in Paris

The Liebherr ITTF Men’s World Cup comes to the Disney Event Arena in Paris (FRA) with 20 players, including the top four in the current ITTF World Rankings and eight of the top 10:

1. Zhendong Fan (CHN) ~ 2017 World Championships silver medalist
2. Timo Boll (GER) ~ 2002-05 World Cup winner; 2011 World Champs bronze medalist
3. Gaoyuan Lin (CHN)
4. Dmitrij Ovtcharov (GER) ~ 2017 World Cup winner
7. Sang-su Lee (KOR) ~ 2017 World Championships bronze medalist
8. Tomokazu Harimoto (JPN)
9. Chun Ting Wong (TPE) ~ 2016 World Cup bronze medalist
10. Hugo Calderano (BRA)

These top eight players will be seeded directly into the quarterfinals and those seeded 11-20 will play in groups to determine their seeding in the quarters. Look for results here.

The prize money is strong – $250,000 in total – with $60,000-40,000-20,000-14,000 for the top four, $10,000 for the quarterfinal losers and then $7,000 and $5,000 for the Round of 16 and Round of 32 losers.