Table tennis world cup awaits Worksop’s Sam Walker
The Worksop athlete will compete alongside Liam Pitchford, Paul Drinkhall and Tom Jarvis at the event in Tokyo from November 6 to 10.
The competition is the test event for the Olympic table tennis tournament and will be in the same venue as will be used in 2020, the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.
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Hide AdEngland will be hoping to match their brilliant performance on home soil in last year’s competition, when, backed by a vocal crowd at the Copper Box Arena on London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, they clinched bronze medals.
They were beaten in the semi-finals by Japan, who went on to be defeated in the final by China – who won both men’s and women’s competitions in London.
China will again be overwhelming favourites, but England, who qualified thanks to their quarter-final finish at the 2018 World Team Championships, have beaten many of the other competing nations in recent years.
The full line-up of qualifying nations is: China (Asia champions), Nigeria (Africa champions), Germany (Europe champions), Brazil (Pan Am champions), Australia (Oceania champions), Japan (hosts), USA (Pan Am runners-up), plus the World team Championship qualifiers South Korea, Sweden, England, Austria and Chinese Taipei.