Sanctioned by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), the ITTF World Tour, is a professional tournament designed for the participation of top table tennis athletes around the world. Consisting of 12 stops in different cities, the annual World Tour is divided into two tiers of events (i.e six Platinum and six regular), leading to the Grand Finals that takes place at the end of the year. Participating players can earn both World Ranking points and prize money in the events, where the points earned will be determined the seeding order in the Grand Finals and also for qualifying for the Olympic Games.
The Seamaster 2019 ITTF World Tour Hang Seng Hong Kong Open, to be held between the China Open and the Japan Open, is the second stop of the "Asia Tour". The Hong Kong Table Tennis Association succeeded in winning the right to host the Hong Kong stop for two consecutive years, definitely a testimony to the ability of this city to organise large-scale international sports competitions. With the Tokyo 2020 Olympics coming up, the "Asian Tour" will surely attract the top athletes to compete at this stop to earn World Ranking points to qualify for the Games.
Last year, the first Seamaster 2018 ITTF World Tour Hang Seng Hong Kong Open was held at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium and has attracted 200 players from 34 countries and regions to compete, featuring many world-class players such as ISHIKAWA Kasumi (Japan), ZHANG Jike (China), LIU Shiwen (China) and homegrown table tennis star WONG Chun Ting (Hong Kong). With warm support from the local crowd, WONG Chun Ting and HO Kwan Kit (Hong Kong) won the Men's Doubles, a big and first-ever achievement in the Hong Kong Open. In 2019, we expect that more than 200 of the world's best players will come to vie for five titles in this tournament, namely the men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles over six competition days.
Riding on the success of the previous year, the Seamaster 2019 ITTF World Tour Hang Seng Hong Kong Open was awarded the "M" Mark status by the Major Sports Events Committee for the first time. The Hong Kong Table Tennis Association will continue its efforts to bring more world-class international table tennis competitions to the city and to promote table tennis as a sport suitable for all in Hong Kong.
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The above information is provided by the Hong Kong Table Tennis Association.
