The World Table Tennis Championships first took place in 1926 in London, England. However, since the year 2000, the Championship has been split into two separate competitions.

Team events are now held in even numbered years, whilst individual events (singles and doubles) are held in odd numbered years.

So 2015 was the year for the individual events to be contested.

The 2015 World Table Tennis Championships events were...

• Men's Singles - for the St Bride Vase
• Women's Singles - for the Geist Prize
• Men's Doubles - for the Iran Cup
• Women's Doubles - for the W. J. Pope Trophy
• Mixed Doubles - for the Heydusek Prize

The St. Bride Vase was donated by C.Corti Woodcock in 1929, a member of the exclusive St. Bride Table Tennis Club in London, in honour of Fred Perry winning the title at the 1929 World Championships in Budapest.

The Geist Prize was donated in 1931 by Dr. Gaspar Geist, President of the Hungarian TTA.

The Iran Cup was presented at the 1947 World Championships by the Shah of Iran.

The W.J. Pope Trophy was donated in 1948 by W.J. Pope of England who was the ITTF Honorary General Secretary.

The Heydusek Cup was donated in 1948 by Zdenek Heydusek, Secretary of the Czechoslovakia Association.

The following equipment was used at the 2015 World Championships...

• Tables - Double Happiness (Purple Blue)
• Net and Posts - Double Happiness
• Balls - Butterfly 40+ 3 star (White plastic)
• Flooring - Gerflor Taraflex (Red)

2015 World Championship show court table from Double Happiness

Players can only be entered into the competition by their National Association.

Only those Associations who are not in arrears with their affiliation fees AND who took part with at least one player or team in its preceding Continental Championships, including qualification tournaments, or Continental Games, were eligible to enter players into the World Championships.

These events were as follows:

• 2014 ITTF-Latin American Championships, 1-6 April, Santo Domingo (DOM)
• 2014 ITTF-Oceania Championships, 16-21 April, Bendigo (AUS)
• 2014 ITTF-North American Championships, 31 August-1 Sept, Missisauga (CAN)
• 2014 ITTF-European Team Championships, 24-28 September, Lisbon (POR)
• 2013 Asian Championships, 30 June-7 July, Busan (KOR)
• 2014 Asian Games, 27 September-4 October, Incheon City (KOR)
• 2014 ITTF-African Championships, 23-29 January 2015, Cairo (EGY)

Number of Entries

Each association can enter 3 men and 3 women players in each singles events - plus one additional player ranked in the top 100 and one additional player ranked in the top 20 of the ITTF world ranking list issued in January of the year of the Championships - up to a maximum of 5 men and 5 women.

The maximum entry for each association is 2 men's doubles, 2 women's doubles and 2 mixed doubles - but all players may be different.

The host Association may enter up to 6 men and 6 women in each singles event, 3 men's doubles, 3 women's doubles and 3 mixed doubles regardless of ranking.

In doubles events, both players may be from different Associations.

The first round proper of Men's Singles, Women's Singles and Mixed Doubles had 128 places and the first round proper of Men's and Women's Doubles had 64 places.

Singles events and Mixed Doubles had 64 seeded players, 32 direct entries and 32 qualifiers. Other doubles events had 32 seeds, 16 direct entries and 16 qualifiers.

Qualification for singles initially comprised of groups, followed by one or two knockout rounds. Qualification for doubles was by knockout.

All singles matches were the best of 7 games.

Doubles matches were best of 5 games in the qualification matches and best of 7 games in the main draw.

Draws

Singles

Singles groups will comprise 3 players with each group winner proceeding to the qualification knockout draw or first round proper (if less than 64 groups).

The draw for the first round proper had 2 stages with the first stage split. The initial first stage draw took place on April 24 and drew the players seeded 17 - 32 and 33 - 64 into appropriate positions at random. The final first stage draw occurred on April 25 (but separately from the initial first stage draw) when seeds 1 - 16 were drawn. Seeds 9 - 16 were drawn first, followed by seeds 5 - 8, then seeds 3 - 4 and finally seeds 1 and 2.

The second stage draws of direct entries and qualifiers were drawn following the completion of the qualification rounds and drawn at random into the remaining 64 positions.

Doubles

The initial draw for the first round proper took place on April 24 when the seeded players were drawn at random into appropriate positions.

The second stage draws of direct entries and qualifiers was drawn following the completion of the qualification rounds and drawn at random into the remaining 32 (men's and women's doubles) or 64 (mixed doubles) positions.

Notes

Players from the same Association were separated only in preliminary rounds and groups and in the first round of the draw, but not in further rounds.

The World Ranking list used for seeding and for the draws was the list published in April 2015.

The previous individual World Table Tennis Championships were held in Paris, France in May 2013 and the winners were...

2013 Men's Singles World Champion

Zhang Jike (China)

courtesy of ITTF

2013 Women's Singles World Champion

Li Xiaoxia (China)

courtesy of ITTF

2013 Men's Doubles World Champions

Chen Chien-An and Chuang Chih-Yuan (Chinese Taipei)

courtesy of ITTF

2013 Women's Doubles World Champions

Guo Yue and Li Xiaoxia (China)

courtesy of ITTF

2013 Mixed Doubles World Champions

Kim Hyok Bong and Kim Jong (North Korea)

courtesy of ITTF

The Chinese players who were the overwhelming favourites to take most of the titles, will be appearing in their new outfits at the 2015 World Championships.

They will have three different outfits to choose from.

Qoros Auto Co., Ltd. is a Chinese-Israeli automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Shanghai, China.

Its principal activity is the design, development, production and sale of passenger cars sold under the Qoros marque.

The results are here...

• Men's Singles Event Results here
• Women's Singles Event Results here
• Men's Doubles Event Results here
• Women's Doubles Event Results here
• Mixed Doubles Event Results here