http://attu.org/en/news/1053
New Format for 2020 Asian Cup
Following a decision of the ATTU Executive Board Meeting held in Yogyakarta in September 2019, the 2020 Asian Cup will take on a slightly different format. To raise the level of attention and play, it was decided to include the current World Champion to the list of invitees. Also, the competition will be played in a single stage knock-out system instead of the previous adopted two-stage round-robin group and knock-out system. The reason of the change is to make the Asian Cup more exciting and attractive to the fans. ATTU Executive Board agreed to review this system after 2020 and decide if the system will be followed in the future.
Just my thoughts on the new format:
1.
Luck in the first round draw plays a bigger role in determining if you qualify for World Cup. Because the format is a single-elimination knockout, one bad match and you're out, so it's less forgiving as compared to the group round-robin format where you can still qualify for the World Cup despite losing 2 group matches. You generally have to be in the Top 8 of the Asian Cup to qualify for the World Cup, so it means that if you lose in the First Round, you won't qualify no matter how high your WR is.
The Europe Top 16 used to have two stages like the old format of the Asian Cup with the first stage being a group round-robin, but it changed to the straight knockout format 2 years ago. In the 2019 Europe Cup, No. 4 seed Pitchford lost in the first round and didn't qualify for the World Cup because of that. He drew and lost to Gauzy who was the highest-ranked player among those seeded 9-16, so it was definitely a tougher draw for him as compared to other possible draws in the 9-16 seed range like Lionel Weber for example. No. 2 seed Falck, who struggles against choppers, also lost in the first round because he drew Gionis. He wouldn't be in the World Cup either had he not gotten the Wild Card for being runner-up in the WTTC.
In the end, there will be a lot on the line even as early as the first round since the first round winners will likely qualify for the World Cup, so I guess ATTU succeeded in making the tournament more interesting as people will be interested not just in the later rounds but even in the first round.
2.
Will there still be separation by National association? The old Asian Cup format usually separated players from the same country in both the group stage and the knockout draw. However, if the Asian Cup follows the format of the Europe Top 16, there won't be any separation by National Association. In the 2019 Europe Cup, Dima and Timo met in the SF. Does this mean that on the Women's side, the Zhu Yuling and Liu Shiwen could be drawn in the same half given Ito is currently WR No. 3? If it's true that there's no separation by country, it may give CTTA more reason to replace Zhu Yuling with either SYS or Chen Meng and hope LSW can overtake Ito in WR by February to ensure the Chinese Women are drawn in different halves.
CTTA replaced Xu Xin, who was initially invited due to a higher WR, with Ma Long in last year's Asian Cup, so I won't be surprised if CTTA modifies the lineup for this year's Asian Cup as well to increase its chances of not only winning the Asian Cup but the Women's World Cup.