2026 WTT Series Calendar

[Bollwerk]

The first look at next year's schedule already got announced today. Very similar to 2025, which makes sense given we are in the first year of what they consider a full calendar. Only event missing is Champions Incheon, replaced by Doha, which will now be the season opener before their Star Contender. In the Contender Series there are 2 new additions of Panagyurishte and Istanbul.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

these are 25 events.
add another 2 or 3 ITTF,
add Feeders (2025 was 19 events)
add another 1 ~ 3 continentals

already having a headache.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

these are 25 events.
add another 2 or 3 ITTF,
add Feeders (2025 was 19 events)
add another 1 ~ 3 continentals

already having a headache.

Only Grand Smashes, WTT Champions, and WTT Finals have mandatory participation via automatic entry and only if they qualify for those events and the exact same number of these high level events as 2025. Also, players are allowed 2 annual exemptions for WTT Champions events which I think is a reasonable balance between player scheduling and WTT's desire for top players to attend.

As for the Contenders/Feeders, those are not mandatory and allows for a "buffet" of tournaments the players can select from. Isn't it better to have the option to choose from a selection of tournaments rather than to have too few tournaments limiting your choices? If too few and they happen to conflict with a player's domestic league schedule, then it makes it harder for them to gain points.

 

[zeio]

Tieba users view WTT CS Doha 2026 (1/7-11) and WTT SCT Doha 2025 (1/13-18) as quasi-GS. LOL

2026多哈大满贯? (2026 Doha Grand Smash?)
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/9927239154
2026 WTT&ITTF 赛程安排（已更新日期） (2026 WTT&ITTF Calendar (updated with dates))
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/9927088672

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Only Grand Smashes, WTT Champions, and WTT Finals have mandatory participation via automatic entry and only if they qualify for those events and the exact same number of these high level events as 2025. Also, players are allowed 2 annual exemptions for WTT Champions events which I think is a reasonable balance between player scheduling and WTT's desire for top players to attend.

As for the Contenders/Feeders, those are not mandatory and allows for a "buffet" of tournaments the players can select from. Isn't it better to have the option to choose from a selection of tournaments rather than to have too few tournaments limiting your choices? If too few and they happen to conflict with a player's domestic league schedule, then it makes it harder for them to gain points.

I know very well about mandatory, not sure why you need to touch on that?

For your second part, you cant have quality on top of quantity.

For you, you might see mandatory or not, for me, I’m seeing the same crew working in feeder just like a smash. No wonder the retention rate is terrible.

Soon, there will be more “senior” table tennis days a year than calendar days and I haven’t even factored in youth.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

I know very well about mandatory, not sure why you need to touch on that?

For your second part, you cant have quality on top of quantity.

For you, you might see mandatory or not, for me, I’m seeing the same crew working in feeder just like a smash. No wonder the retention rate is terrible.

Soon, there will be more “senior” table tennis days a year than calendar days and I haven’t even factored in youth.

Right, I mentioned the mandatory part as not everyone knows what's mandatory and what's not. When you say there are 25+ tournaments, I think it's fair to say most are not mandatory. There are definitely things for WTT to improve upon such as camera quality, camera angle, TTR, etc. But for the majority of pros (those outside top 32 for Champions and top 50 for Smashes), they don't have to deal with automatic entry and have the flexibility to choose which tournaments to attend. And they're making it known in advance what tournaments there will be and the general schedule. I think of that as a positive.

 

[Snek]

Hasn't there been 2 WTT Finals in a year recently? This calendar only one for 2026.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Hasn't there been 2 WTT Finals in a year recently? This calendar only one for 2026.

I think it was just a scheduling issue. There was a WTT Women's Finals in Dec '23 and WTT Men's Final in Jan '24 (for the 2023 calendar year). There was a WTT Finals (both men and women at Fukuoka) for the year 2024 in Nov '24. This year will also be a single WTT Final in Hong Kong Dec '25.

 

[zeio]

Here is the original plan from 2021. There are 2 more Champions now, and no more "a separate women's tour". The highest number of Contender was 12 in 2023.

https://www.worldtabletennis.com/hostevent
WTT Series
Up to 34 events
4 Grand Smashes
2 WTT Cup Finals (1 per gender)
8 WTT Champions (4 per gender)
6 WTT Star Contender
14 WTT Contender

WTT Feeder Series (2022-)
Up to 60 events

WTT Youth Series
Up to 100 events

---

World Table Tennis - new Event Structure explained!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evk-XbtYHeU

---

WHAT IS
WTT ?
A NEW ENTITY
https://www.worldtabletennis.com/aboutus

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Right, I mentioned the mandatory part as not everyone knows what's mandatory and what's not. When you say there are 25+ tournaments, I think it's fair to say most are not mandatory. There are definitely things for WTT to improve upon such as camera quality, camera angle, TTR, etc. But for the majority of pros (those outside top 32 for Champions and top 50 for Smashes), they don't have to deal with automatic entry and have the flexibility to choose which tournaments to attend. And they're making it known in advance what tournaments there will be and the general schedule. I think of that as a positive.

Indeed a positive but you probably didn’t factor in expiring world ranking points into your thought process of these players. WTT still wins….
I will leave it at that, as this is derailing the intention of my post.

 

[backspacer]

It says WTT Champions Germany and not Frankfurt. Possible location change?

 

[Angerer]

Hope the U.S. Smash organizers have enough time and can afford buying new cameras that aren't Nokia phones leftovers from the 2000s
Having non-shaky tables would also be a great improvement.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

It says WTT Champions Germany and not Frankfurt. Possible location change?

I believe so

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Hope the U.S. Smash organizers have enough time and can afford buying new cameras that aren't Nokia phones leftovers from the 2000s
Having non-shaky tables would also be a great improvement.

This you need to ask WTT whats the heck is going on.

The crew need to be like 6 to 10 teams now, and everything need to go up in quantity too, including proper cameras. and it isn't like they have DHL planes like F1 has.
When you have such quantity, is difficult to keep quality.

I really don't understand the need for so many events, when most of them are close to irrelevant. I mean, there isn't much crowd, or much "international" participants. It is like a domestic tournament and you have few internationals from neighboring countries taking part - even the host countries national tournaments are bigger than the so called "WTT" event they host.

They really need to look at a min participation number - ie, if they can't get more than 10 MA taking part, then, it cannot be called an international event.
Some events, have less than 5 countries taking part, or 95% of the participants are from the host country. The youth has plenty of this.

The quality from inside and outside is terrible. The camera just makes it looks bad for viewers, but if you are a non TT person and you walk in some international and see literally no one (especially participants), that is 100 times worse than the cameras

having more isn't the solution. need to look at having more quality events.

 

[zeio]

It says WTT Champions Germany and not Frankfurt. Possible location change?

It was like this as well for 2025.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/wtt-champions-germany-2025-4-9-nov-2025.35826/

 

[backspacer]

It was like this as well for 2025.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/wtt-champions-germany-2025-4-9-nov-2025.35826/

Weird why it's different with this event.

 

[Bollwerk]

Weird why it's different with this event.

I think DTTB is holding out for govt funding before confirming the location.

 

[dingyibvs]

This you need to ask WTT whats the heck is going on.

The crew need to be like 6 to 10 teams now, and everything need to go up in quantity too, including proper cameras. and it isn't like they have DHL planes like F1 has.
When you have such quantity, is difficult to keep quality.

I really don't understand the need for so many events, when most of them are close to irrelevant. I mean, there isn't much crowd, or much "international" participants. It is like a domestic tournament and you have few internationals from neighboring countries taking part - even the host countries national tournaments are bigger than the so called "WTT" event they host.

They really need to look at a min participation number - ie, if they can't get more than 10 MA taking part, then, it cannot be called an international event.
Some events, have less than 5 countries taking part, or 95% of the participants are from the host country. The youth has plenty of this.

The quality from inside and outside is terrible. The camera just makes it looks bad for viewers, but if you are a non TT person and you walk in some international and see literally no one (especially participants), that is 100 times worse than the cameras

having more isn't the solution. need to look at having more quality events.

What's the downside of what you're complaining about though? I mean, so what if the smaller events are mostly domestic? I think they're great for many players who don't have the budget to travel, they can still get a world ranking that way.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

What's the downside of what you're complaining about though? I mean, so what if the smaller events are mostly domestic? I think they're great for many players who don't have the budget to travel, they can still get a world ranking that way.

yeah, you do have a point, since homegrown players / ranking is the biggest advantage.

With 9 WTT events on US soil, the highest for any country in 2025.
For those who doesn't know, it is the Smash, the feeder going on now, as well as 7 WTT youths (5 of them at 888 club). Even the likes of China, which if we includes Hong Kong (youth) and Macau, it is only 6 events, the second highest.

lets see how quality and quantity can be put together.
you probably can visit most of the 9 in 2025, what kind of non quality do you see? 9 event does merit an WTT events company opening, so lets see if this company will bring up the quality in the coming years.

are you at the feeder now?
52 mens player, KOR (888 influence) having 13 players there, 2nd to USA 15, total of 52 players.
Breakdown per country
AUS 4
KOR 13
JPN 8
USA 15
FRA 5
GER 1
AUT 1
BEL 1
PUR 1
CAN 1
DOM 1
MLT 1


or WTT Youth New York, U19 boys entry (a back to back event, which triggered probably those less than a handful international travelers)
USA 15
AUS 1
PUR 5
IND 1
POL 1
NZL 1
CAN 5
BUL 1

We are only during the 1st year of the full calendar, post covid basically.
when is it too much internationals?
when will internationals be less value than a domestic tournaments? (both for spectator and quality of tournament run)
is having a WTT event, really of value, or its just one of a hundred events in a year, to "fill gaps".

I once said, I would prefer the lower tiers to be called a total different name (to protect the value of WTT), maybe run from another entity and not WTT. WTT to focus on the elite, and maybe another tier to focus on the semi-pro, amateur-pro.
Many of the camera angles of WTT during the recent Americas is just one of the low qualities that you will read about on TTD.

How a contender venue is bigger than star contender is also very interesting (won't touch about the Smash hall embarassement), but I know, hosting a tournament is not easy and every country deserves they own tournament - we have over 200 member associations in table tennis, 227 to be exact, if just 80 of them decide to host 1 and the likes of USA who wants to hvae 9, we going to have over 200 events a year in the coming years and live table tennis on youtube will become a 24/7 thing.

We are basically going to be near 50% there soon (youth has 62 in 2025).

In summary
- too much of anything, will have doubt in its value
- if the quality is all good, then that is okay.
- so hence I question quality over quantity, but right now quantity is still on the increases, lets see how quality will hold up.

 

[Shine]

Right, I mentioned the mandatory part as not everyone knows what's mandatory and what's not. When you say there are 25+ tournaments, I think it's fair to say most are not mandatory. There are definitely things for WTT to improve upon such as camera quality, camera angle, TTR, etc. But for the majority of pros (those outside top 32 for Champions and top 50 for Smashes), they don't have to deal with automatic entry and have the flexibility to choose which tournaments to attend. And they're making it known in advance what tournaments there will be and the general schedule. I think of that as a positive.

That means needs to whine about the calendar. Don't deny them one less thing to whine about.