The 2024 Table Tennis Singles World Cup will be held in Macao, China from April 15 to 21, and the national table tennis is preparing for the restructured Singles World Cup in Beijing. Fan, who didn't perform well at the WTT Singapore Grand Slam or Incheon Championships, will be aiming for his fifth World Cup title.
The number of participants in the Singles World Cup will be increased from 16 to 48, with 46 quota places being determined through the Continental Cup or World Rankings, with the defending champions and World Junior Championships Under-19 champions automatically qualifying. Each member association has a maximum of four people to participate, because the defending champion and the U19 group champion of the World Youth Championships are all national table tennis players, the national table tennis men and women can send six people to play in this competition, the men's team is Wang Chuqin, Fan Zhendong, Ma Long, Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan, Lin Shidong, and the women's team is Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, Wang Yidi, Chen Meng, Chen Xingtong, Kuo Man. The Singles World Cup is known as the world's three major tournaments along with the Olympic Games and the World Championships, and the athletes who win all three competitions are called Grand Slams. The Macau Singles World Cup is also the only tournament before the Paris Olympics where he can win the title of world champion. Among the players participating in the national table tennis this time, only Ma Long, Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng have won the World Cup, of which Fan Zhendong has won four times, and Ma Lin, the current head coach of the national table tennis women's team, has become the athlete with the most men's World Cup championships.
Fan Zhendong has won the World Cup four times in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020, and is the only player to win the men's World Cup three consecutive years. In the 2016 Saarbrücken Men's World Cup final, Fan Zhendong defeated Xu Xin 4-1 to win the championship, which was also his first time winning the singles championship of the world's three major tournaments, in the 2018 Paris Men's World Cup final, Fan Zhendong defeated Germany's Boll 4-1 and won the championship for the second time, in the 2019 Chengdu Men's World Cup final, Fan Zhendong defeated Japan's Tomokazu Zhangmoto 4-2 and successfully defended the title, and in the 2020 Weihai Men's World Cup final, Fan Zhendong defeated Ma Long 4-3 to achieve three consecutive championships, which is also his fourth men's World Cup championship, tying Ma Lin's four-crown record and becoming the player with the most men's World Cup titles.
In the following three years, the singles World Cup was suspended until the resumption of the singles World Cup this year, but the system was restructured, in addition to the increase in participants, the competition system also changed from the elimination system to the first stage of the group stage and the second stage of the knockout round. Fan Zhendong will be the reigning men's World Cup champion and challenge for his fifth singles World Cup title. Recently, Fan Zhendong's competitive state has been up and down, both civil and foreign wars have lost, in the WTT Singapore Grand Slam that ended earlier, he lost 1-3 to teammate Lin Shidong, missed the quarterfinals, and then in the Incheon Championships, he lost 2-4 to Brazil's Hugo, missed the final, Macau Singles World Cup as an important training before the Paris Olympics, Fan Zhendong will face more tests. If Fan Zhendong can win the championship again, it will tie the record held by Liu Shiwen for the most World Cup singles titles, Liu Shiwen has won the Women's World Cup five times in 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2019, and is the player with the most World Cup titles.