The long wait is over and the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals London 2026 Presented by ACN are here!
Stage 1b gets under way at the Copper Box Arena at 10am on Tuesday, with 56 men’s and 56 women’s nations bidding to qualify to join the top seven seeds and hosts England at OVO Arena Wembley.
Action will be on 12 tables simultaneously – here’s everything you need to know about Day One.
How to watch
Head to ITTF YouTube channel for all tables.
Who and what to look out for
- The highest ranked teams in Stage 1b are Denmark in the men’s and Egypt in the women’s. Both compete in the first session at 10am – Denmark against Mexico and Egypt against South Africa.
- There will be a little corner of the Copper Box which is Australian territory from 5pm, when the men face Morocco on Table 7 and the women play Uzbekistan on adjacent Table 8. Liu Yangzi makes her World Championships debut, fresh from having won WTT Feeder Seneca last week.
- Australia’s Aditya Sareen celebrates his 18th birthday on Day One of the Championships. Croatia’s Ivor Ban turns 23 – his country faces Luxembourg at 12.30pm.
- At the other end of the age scale is Fiji’s World Championships debutant Wang Qi. He is the oldest player in London, having turned 73 on Sunday.
- DPR Korea play their first World Team Championships matches since 2018. They will face New Zealand in the men’s competition and Poland in the women’s, both at 5pm.
- This is a truly global event, illustrated by the fact that only seven of the 48 matches on Day One are between countries from the same continent, including Slovakia versus Switzerland in the women’s and Argentina versus Peru in the men’s.
- Talking of Argentina, Horacio Cifuentes is likely to be on duty. He was the first Argentinian player to beat a Chinese national team player – Liang Jingkun – at the recent ITTF World Cup in Macao.
- The youngest teams are UZB and NAM women’s teams, average age 15 years. Uzbekistan women start against Australia and Namibia against USA, both at 5pm.