The 2024 World Team Table Tennis Championships is all set to begin in Busan, South Korea on Friday.

The ten-day competition in the Asian city will serve as the final 2024 Paris Olympics qualifiers for team events, with all eight quarter-finalists in both men’s and women’s section booking their ticket to the French capital.

The fact that all the qualified teams are allotted two quota places in the singles event as well means that there is a lot more at stake.

The World Team Championships will see a total of 40 teams each in men’s and women’s section battle it out for the top honours. The teams have been divided into a eight groups of five teams.

Following a round robin stage, all eight table toppers will move to the Round of 16 while the second and third placed teams in all eight groups will go up against each other for a place in the pre-quarters. The fourth and fifth placed teams will no longer be a part of the competition.

The Indian men’s team, led by Harmeet Desai, have been drawn in Group 3 for the competition alongside the world No 3 South Korea. The other teams in the group includes Poland, Chile, and New Zealand. They will start their campaign against Chile on Saturday.

The Indian women’s team meanwhile are placed in Group 1 with world No 1 China, against whom they will open their campaign on Friday. The Chinese women’s team has won all the editions of the World Team Championships, starting 1993, except for the 2010 edition when they were pipped by Singapore.

The other teams in the Group 1 for women include a higher ranked Hungary, Spain, and Uzbekistan.

Both the Indian teams had reached the round of 16 in the men’s and women’s event in the previous edition, in 2022. One step further this term will earn them qualification to Paris.

Indian Teams

Men: Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakkar, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Manush Shah

Women: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Archana Kamath, Ayhika Mukherjee, Diya Chitale

India Schedule

Men

17th February: India vs Chile - 4:30 pm IST

18th February: India vs Poland - 9:30 am IST

19th February: Korea vs India - 6:30 am IST

20th February: India vs New Zealand - 4:30 pm IST

Women

16th February: China vs India - 6:30 am IST

18th February: Hungary vs India - 1:30 pm IST

19th February: India vs Uzbekistan - 9:30 am IST

20th February: India vs Spain - 1:30 pm IST