World Table Tennis Championships 2024: Schedule, fixture, teams and venue revealed

India will be among 40 teams at the World Table Tennis Championships 2024, taking place in Busan, South Korea. The matches will be played between 16-25 February, with eight groups of five teams battling it out in each category. 

Since the Indian team hasn’t secured their spot at the Paris Olympics 2024, they will have to make it to the quarter finals of the tournament to confirm their spot. Any team entering the last eight of the World Table Tennis Championships will be awarded a quota at the Olympics this year. Should a team progressing to the quarter finals already have a quota at the Summer Olympics, their spot will go to the next best placed team without a quota as per the March 2024 rankings. 

World Table Tennis Championships 2024: India to battle it out for Olympics 

Here are the groups in both the men’s and women’s category that will compete in the preliminary stages: 

Men’s Team

Group 1 – China, Croatia, Belgium, Hungary, Cuba

Group 2 – Germany, England, United States, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia

Group 3 – South Korea, India, Poland, Chile, New Zealand

Group 4 – France, Australia, Denmark, Austria, Algeria

Group 5 – Japan, Chinese Taipei, Nigeria, Czech Republic, Madagascar

Group 6 – Sweden, Hong Kong, Slovakia, Puerto Rico, Serbia

Group 7 – Brazil, Slovenia, Singapore, Canada, Malaysia

Group 8 – Portugal, Egypt, Romania, Iran, Thailand

Women’s Team

Group 1 – China, Hungary, India, Spain, Uzbekistan

Group 2 – Japan, Brazil, Luxembourg, South Africa, Iran

Group 3 – Germany, Slovakia, Poland, Nigeria, Mexico

Group 4 – Chinese Taipei, United States, Thailand, Chile, Algeria

Group 5 – South Korea, Puerto Rico, Italy, Malaysia, Cuba

Group 6 – Hong Kong, Portugal, Austria, Australia, Kazakhstan

Group 7 – Romania, Singapore, Sweden, Canada, Serbia

Group 8 – France, Egypt, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Croatia

Who is in the Indian team? 

Men’s Team – Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakkar, Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Manush Shah

Women’s Team – Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Archana Kamath, Ayhika Mukherjee, Diya Chitale

Where Can I Watch? 

Unfortunately, the World Table Tennis Championships will not be televised on any TV channel in India. The games can be watched only on YouTube, and will be available for free on the World Table Tennis channel. 

At the time of writing, India have only earned one win out of their first four games. They won 3-0 against Chile in their second outing but lost against China, Poland and Hungary.