The three upcoming events offer plenty of opportunities for players to move up and down the World Ranking charts.
Here are the points available to players at the different events:
#RESTART THE BATTLE FOR POINTS!
World Cups explained
Since the World Ranking points for last year’s Men’s and Women’s World Cups will expire, those players who qualified for both 2019 and 2020 events will be determined to defend the points earned from last year, not least the 2019 champions, Fan Zhendong (China) and Liu Shiwen (China).
In fact, Fan and Liu must retain their titles in order not to lose any ground in terms of World Ranking points. Likewise, any player must match their previous year’s result in order not to lose points.
This will ramp up pressure also for the 2019 runners-up, Tomokazu Harimoto (Japan) and Zhu Yuling (China), the 3rd-placed players, Lin Yun-Ju (Chinese Taipei) and Feng Tianwei (Singapore), and 4th-placed players, Ma Long (China) and Lily Zhang (USA).
By contrast, there are plenty of gains on offer for players who did not take part in the 2019 World Cups but will be lining up in 2020. They literally have nothing to lose and will improve their ranking points no matter the result they achieve.
ITTF Finals explained
It’s a different story at the ITTF Finals, where the points from the 2019 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals will remain valid. Therefore, at the 2020 ITTF Finals, all the participating players have the chance to improve their World Ranking points, by counting the event among their best 8 results.
In the men’s singles event, Xu Xin (China) will need to reach the final in order to improve his points, while semi-final appearances will be the minimum requirement for his compatriots, Fan Zhendong and Ma Long.
Similarly, the quarter-final stage is the threshold objective for Tomokazu Harimoto (Japan), Lin Gaoyuan (China), Hugo Calderano (Brazil) and Timo Boll (Germany).
Meanwhile, nine players will increase their points simply by participating at the event: Lin Yun-Ju (Chinese Taipei), Mattias Falck (Sweden), Dimitrij Ovtcharov (Germany), Koki Niwa (Japan), Jeoung Youngsik (Korea Republic), Liam Pitchford (England), Patrick Franziska (Germany), Jun Mizutani (Japan) and Jang Woojin (Korea Republic).
In the women’s singles event, Chen Meng (China) and Mima Ito (Japan) must reach at least the semi-finals in order to improve their points, with the quarter-final stage the minimum objective for Sun Yingsha, Liu Shiwen, Wang Manyu (all China), Cheng I-Ching (Chinese Taipei), Kasumi Ishikawa (Japan) and Miu Hirano (Japan).
Meanwhile, eight players will increase their points simply by participating at the event: Feng Tianwei (Singapore), Sofia Polcanova (Austria), Doo Hoi Kem (Hong Kong China), Jeon Jihee (Korea Republic), Hitomi Sato (Japan), Adriana Diaz (Puerto Rico), Petrissa Solja (Germany) and Suh Hyowon (Korea Republic).
