Who will be the champion of Liebherr 2016 Men’s World Cup in Table tennis?

Ma Long to prove once again his perfect skills at the Liebherr 2016 Men’s World Cup in Table tennis.

Even if you are not a table tennis fan there is one event in this sport that you simply cannot miss: the annual Liebherr World Cup in table tennis. It has been held every year since the Hong Kong experimental event in1980, collecting on one place the best in the world of table tennis. This year’s World Cup will be organized in “Saarlandhalle” in Saarbrücken from October 1-3. It will be the third edition of the World Cup organized in Germany after the ones in Magdeburg in 2007 and Dusseldorf in 2014. As it is usually said by table tennis fans this is one of the most important world tournament after the Olympic Games and the World Table Tennis Championships.

Who participates and what is the format of competition

At the beginnings of this invitational event organized by the International Table Tennis Association there were only 16 players divided in four groups. However, the format of the competition was slightly modified in 2013 and nowadays there are 20 participants. As, internet betting sites in China note, seventeen of them qualify on the cup through their Continental Cup competitions, one is representative of the host country, one is participating with a wild card and last one is the world champion.

• The Chinese players dominate the World Cup

• Ma Long to show his class again after the win in Halmstad

• The hosts with hopes in Dimitrij Ovtcharov

The format of the competition comprises three stages. In the first one the players with the lowest ranking of all the 20 participants play form 4 groups of three and pay between eachother. The group winners join the eight best ranked players in the second stage, where there are again four groups out of three participants. The two best of each group proceed after to the quarter final.

A brief history of the World Cup champions

The Chinese domination on the tournament is beyond any question. It seems that what is most difficult for the chine players is to qualify for this tournament, then to win it. Namely, as online sportsbooks in EU stress, because of the restrain that there are only 2 participants from one country (with exception of the one additional that might be invited via wild card) the Chinese compete with the “top of the top” although much more world class players remains out of the tournament.

On this year’s World championship held in Kuala Lumpur as well as on the Rio Olympics the Chinese stars proved once again their domination in the sport. On the Olympics it was the match between Ma Long and Jike Zhang that decided the champion while in Kuala Lumpur both of them together with Xu Xing succeed to defeat in the final their Japanese opponents Jun Mizutani, Maharu Joshimura and Yuya Oshima, and secure another gold.

In Saarbrucken it is very probable that we see duels between these stars of today’s table tennis again. Whether the epilogue will be different is something that all you fans of bet on sports in Germany can place a wager on. An information you should take into consideration is that in the past ten years the World Cup has only once been out of the hands of the Chinese athletes: it was back in 2009 when Vladimir Samsonov from Belarus won the tournament. The rest of the years were spent in Chinese domination: three tournaments for the legendary Wang Hao, and two for Jike Zhang and Ma Long.

The hopes of the hosts

The Germans also have their hopes for the tournament. Betting sports company from France dealing with table tennis claim that they still remember the glorious time of Timo Boll who won the World Cup in 2002 and 2005. After the Rio Olympics they see their chances especially in Dimitrij Ovtcharov, whose good shape certainly promises another World Cup medal. He won the bronze on the last World Cup, and we are about to see whether he can repeat that success once again.