WTT Star Contender Goa 2023 - Panaji to host India’s first World Table Tennis series event
The WTT Star Contender Goa will be held from February 27 to March 5 in the Goa University campus.
Table Tennis
Panaji, the capital of Goa, will host India’s first-ever World Table Tennis (WTT) series event.
The WTT Star Contender Goa 2023 tournament has been scheduled from February 27 to March 5 at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium, located in the Goa University campus situated in the southern Taleigao neighbourhood.
The WTT Series consists of a set of official professional table tennis events scheduled throughout a year, where the world’s best players face each other. Four Grand Smashes, similar to tennis Grand Slams, are the top-tier events in the WTT Series.
Cup Finals, Champion Series and the Contender Series are the other three WTT Series tournament tiers. The Contender Series is further subdivided into two categories - 14 lower-tier WTT Contender tournaments and six top-tier WTT Star Contender events.
The six Star Contender events pit 48 men and women in the respective singles main draws. Players ranked in the world top 30 are eligible to play and four among them need to be in the top 20.
WTT Star Contender tournaments also feature 16-team doubles main draws for men and women alongside an eight-team mixed doubles main draw.
Eight qualifiers each in singles and four in doubles also get to progress to the main draw while host countries are also provided with sufficient wild-card entries in both singles and doubles categories.
“WTT is thrilled to be coming to Goa to host the very first WTT event in India. The WTT Star Contender in Goa will showcase the new brand of table tennis to the Indian people, and we believe this will be the first of many WTT events in India. The world’s best Table Tennis players will love coming to Goa and together we'll make history”, Matt Pound, Managing Director of the WTT, said.