With Europe in fray, ITTF Doubles World Cup unlikely to be held in China, says president Sorling

Panaji, Jul 10 (PTI) The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) is planning to stage the inaugural edition of the Doubles World Cup outside China, said the organisation’s president Petra Sorling here on Friday. The inaugural edition of the ITTF Doubles World Cup, slated to be played in 2027 ahead of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, will comprise men’s, women’s and mixed doubles events. The ITTF had announced the tournament in March this year, saying that every LA28 Olympic table tennis event would now have an equivalent on the World Cup stage, along with the men’s and women’s World Cup covering singles, and the mixed team World Cup. “We haven't made the formal announcement yet, but we will take the World Cup, the Men's and the Women’s (doubles) World Cup out of China-Macau, and we will go to Europe for the formal announcement to come later on,” Sorling told PTI in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the seventh season of Ultimate Table Tennis here. Sorling said with doubles being a medal event at 2028 LA Games, it was important to have a World Cup in that category. “It's a new concept that we are now taking the World Cups into the world of doubles. It has actually started, we were very inspired here by UTT League when it comes to playing together in teams, playing mixed teams, and we created a World Cup, namely the Mixed Team World Cup,” she said. “That became a very big success, and we tried to also sell this to the Olympic movement, because we felt that this will be very interesting also to play in the Olympic Games. "When an event becomes an Olympic event, such as the doubles now are coming back, then of course the players want to play more doubles and doubles become more important. That's the reason why we added one World Cup. There was a demand for it, driven by the fact that we are now having doubles back in the Olympic programme in 2028,” Sorling added. Sorling gave a thumbs-up to UTT tweaking the format for this edition, with the very next point after 10 being the golden point to win a game, and the addition of the Table Tennis Review. “For me, it's exciting. I also like that we are trying a new format. It’s (only) by testing you also find new ways forward and we can see that also in the past when we went from 21 to 11 in our counting system and now badminton is coming (up with it) after many years later,” the former Swedish player and World Masters champion said. “I believe that in the society we are living in today, everything is fast and we also in sport need to have a lot of good rallies and also with this playing format, the matches are not too long. They are more exciting. “We really embrace it and we also like very much that UTT league is doing these kind of changes because for us in table tennis, it's also a way to test new elements and we got also a lot of inspiration from here,” Sorling said. Asked if ITTF is looking at India for hosting more tournaments, Sorling said the number of events hosted by the country recently has been on the rise. “First and foremost, the number of events is always something that we debate. On one hand, we need more events. On the other hand, we have 52 weeks and for the players, there is a lot of events already. We have to balance this,” she said. “When it comes to events here in India, we have seen, I was here in Goa 2023 when it was the first WTT events. It was a successful event and since then you have hosted a lot of WTT events. “You also have hosted the Continental Championships, the Asian Championships. From ITTF and WTT side, we are looking forward to come back here in India for big events like this one,” she added. PTI DDV PDS