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WTT Star Contender Goa 2024 to take place from January 23 to 28
The tournament boasts of a prize pool of USD 250,000 and ranking points will be up for grabs.
The second edition of India's biggest table tennis tournament, the WTT Star Contender will be held in Goa from January 23 to 28 next year.
World Table Tennis (WTT), conceptualised by the International Table Tennis Federation in 2019, serves as the epicentre for professional men's and women's table tennis events globally.
The series encompasses a multitude of events throughout the year, with the four Grand Smashes standing out as the highest-ranked tournaments.
The tournament is a part of the six-star Contender series events where only the top-30 players are eligible to participate, with six players compulsory from the top 20 in the world rankings.
The tournament boasts of a prize pool of USD 250,000 and ranking points will be up for grabs. The event is also a qualifier for the WTT Cup Finals and WTT Champions Series.
"Playing against world-class players or watching them from close quarters always inspires the younger generation. This tournament is a great opportunity for our Indian players," Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) secretary-general Kamlesh Mehta said in a release.
The first edition of the WTT Star Contender Goa took place earlier this year and had some of the world's biggest stars on show, including world No. 1 Fan Zhendong, Japanese prodigy Tomokazu Harimoto, world No. 4 Wang Yidi, and World No. 5 Hina Hayata.
Besides, the tournament also saw the participation of 40 Indian players, which was the highest for a WTT event.
China's Liang Jingkun and Yidi had won the men's and women's singles titles respectively in the inaugural edition of the tournament.
Stupa Sports Analytics and Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) have also announced a strategic collaboration for the event.
“The first edition of WTT Star Contender Goa was a great success. Table tennis is still at a nascent stage in India and tournaments like this not only show sport’s potential commercially but also encourage its overall growth,” Stupa Sports Analytics CEO and Co-founder Megha Gambhir commented.
