On April 14, the 2024 Macau Men's and Women's World Cup will start on the 15th, with the men's and women's singles top seeds Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, and the men's and women's singles defending champions Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng attending the draw ceremony.
The Macau World Cup is the first singles World Cup after the restructuring, April 15-17 will be held in the group stage, 48 men and women are divided into 16 groups for the group stage competition, each game plays 4 games (4-0, 3-1, 2-2), and finally the top 16 players in each group enter the knockout stage. From April 18th to 21st, there will be a knockout stage until the final winner is determined. The knockout rounds are played in a best-of-seven format. A total of Wang Chuqin, Fan Zhendong, Liang Jingkun, Ma Long, Lin Gaoyuan, and Lin Shidong participated in the men's World Cup, and Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, Wang Yidi, Chen Meng, Chen Xingtong, and Kuo Man participated in the Women's World Cup. As the last chance to be crowned world champion before the Paris Olympics, the six men and six women of the national table tennis will go all out, especially the team members who are expected to participate in the Paris Olympics, this championship will also increase their confidence.
The group stage of this competition adopts the principle of avoidance of the same association, and the national table tennis players enter different groups. Men's singles world No. 1 Wang Chuqin, women's singles world No. 1 Sun Yingsha, men's World Cup defending champion Fan Zhendong, women's World Cup defending champion Chen Meng and other athletes attended the draw ceremony. According to the draw results, in the men's World Cup, Wang Chuqin entered group 1, in the same group as Glasmenko and An Jaexian, Fan Zhendong and Huang Zhenting and Du Da in group 2, Liang Jingkun and Carlson and Lin Wenzheng in group 3, Ma Long and Li Yuanzhang and Salene in group 4, Lin Gaoyuan and Zhuang Zhiyuan and Puka in group 6, Lin Shidong and Eric Lebrun and Mino in group 13. Due to the special format of the group stage, the game is more suspenseful.
In the Women's World Cup, Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, Wang Yidi, and Chen Meng swept the top four seeds and entered groups 1-4 respectively. Among them, Sun Yingsha is in the same group as Chen Siyu and Zhu Chengzhu, Wang Manyu is in the same group as Batra and Diaconu, Wang Yidi is in the same group as Shan Xiaona and Du Kaiqin, and Chen Meng is in the same group as Akula and Natalia Bayo. Chen Xingtong entered the 6th group, with Paranan and Liu Xinyin in the same group, and Kuo Man, Tian Zhixi, and Hong Jianfang in the same 13th group. For the national table tennis women's team, the World Cup group does not qualify or loses the corresponding Paris Olympic points, the group stage for the 6 participants, especially those who want to compete for the Olympic qualification, can only win and not lose, the group stage loss is not only likely to miss the qualification, even if you advance to the knockout round, you will be deducted the corresponding points.
According to the schedule of the first day, Chen Meng will become the first player to play in the national table tennis team, she will play at about 10:50 against Poland's Natalia, Ma Long is expected to play at 11:30 against Australia's Salin, Fan Zhendong is expected to play at 13:10 against Germany's Duda, followed by Lin Shidong's match against Ecuador's Mino. Wang Yidi is expected to play at 14:30 against Hong Kong's Du Hoi Kim, Lin Gaoyuan will play at 17 p.m. against Croatia's Puka, Leung Ching-kun is expected to play at 18:20 against Australia's Lim Boon Zheng, Sun Yingsha is expected to play at 7 p.m. against Hong Kong's Zhu Chengzhu, Wang Manyu is expected to play at 20 p.m. against Romania's Diaconu, Chen Xingtong is expected to play at 21:20 against Taipei's Liu Xinyin, and Wang Chuqin is expected to play at 10 p.m. against South Korea's Ahn Jae-hyun.