International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) – where Swede Petra Sörling is the chairman – called an extraordinary board meeting after the three Chinese stars jumped off the World Tour circuit. This because fines would await if they did not participate in the competitions arranged by WTT (World Table Tennis), which is a commercial company owned by ITTF.
The board meeting was held on Thursday and now ITTF announces that a task force is being created to review the rules and gather opinions from both players and coaches. A player forum will be held during the Grand Smash tournament in Singapore, which takes place from January 30 to February 9.
The task force will present its conclusions and recommendations after the WTT tournament in Singapore.
Fan Zhendong defeated Swede Truls Möregårdh in the Olympic Games final last summer and has also won two consecutive World Championship individual titles. Chen Meng took home the gold in Paris on the women's side and also won Olympic Games gold in 2021. Ma Long is considered one of the best players in table tennis history with two consecutive Olympic Games individual titles (2016 and 2021) and three consecutive World Championship titles (2015-2019) on his merit list.
