46^th World Table Tennis Championships

Osaka, Japan · April 23 - May 6, 2001

All team matches use the "modified Swaythling Cup" style. Three players play for each team in a best-of-five team match format, with all matches best of three. If the players are ABC vs. XYZ, the format would be as follows.

A vs. X
B vs. Y
C vs. Z
A vs. Y
B vs. X

Stage One: The top 24 teams in the world will go into eight first-division preliminary groups of three; the next 24 in eight second-division preliminary groups of three; and the rest in eight third-division preliminary groups of three to four. The eight group winners from the second division will then have a knockout team match against the eight first division teams that came in last in their groups. The winners go to the first division, the losers to the second division. Similarly, the winners of the eight third-division teams have a knockout team match with the eight second division teams that came last in their groups, with the winners to play in the second division, the losers in the third division.

Stage Two: In the first division, the eight group winners are seeded one through eight. In the second and third division, the losers of the knockout match against the higher division is seeded one through eight. In all divisions, the second place finishers in their round robins are seeded nine through 16, and the winners of the knockout team match are seeded 17 through 24.

All teams will then be placed in a final single elimination draw of 32, with the top eight seeds getting byes into the round of 16. In the third division, where there might be four teams in a group, the fourth place teams will play a preliminary team match against third place teams, with the winners moving into the main draw, the losers continuing in a progressive knock-off competition for the final positions.

A progressive knock-out competition will be played throughout all Divisions to determine a complete and final placing for all teams, with the exception of the third and fourth place teams in the first division, which will remain a "joint third" with a bronze medal awarded to both teams.

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