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The International Table Tennis Federation announced the draws for the 2024 Men’s and Women’s Singles World Cup 2024 on April 14, Sunday. The tournament is scheduled from April 15 to 21 at the Galaxy Arena in Macao. On the eve of the competition, the draws of the event were released at a press conference. The tournament will see top paddlers from across the globe fighting for a whopping prize pool of $100K.
While India has no representation in men’s singles, women’s paddlers Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula were handed tough draws. Indian ace paddler Manika Batra was placed in Group 2, and the world number 38 will face encounters against higher-ranked Wang Manyu of China and world-ranked 45 Adina Diaconu of Romania in the first stage.
Batra, who recently failed to earn a Paris Olympics’ mixed doubles quota earlier this week, met Manyu earlier. During their meeting at the World Table Tennis Team Championships in February, the world-ranked 2 defeated the Indian star 3-1 (11-3, 11-8, 13-15, 11-7). On the other hand, world-ranked 4 Sreeja, who is soon likely to be India’s new poster girl by replacing Batra, will have to clash against higher-ranked competitors.
The world ranked 40 will be up against world number 4 Cheng Meng in Group 4 as well as world number 51 Natalia Bajor of Poland. While Batra’s form is concerning, Sreeja has been doing great off late, with her two recent wins at WTT Feeder Corpus Christi and WTT Feeder Beirut II. Both men’s and women’s categories have 16 groups each, with 48 players in each of the categories.
