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.