Manika Batra, Manav Thakkar lead India at ITTF World Team Championships 2026

Olympians Manika Batra, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Manav Thakkar and Harmeet Desai will lead a 10-member Indian table tennis contingent at the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships 2026 , set to begin on Tuesday in London, England . The prestigious event will be held at the OVO Arena Wembley and features separate men’s and women’s team competitions, the Swaythling Cup and the Corbillon Cup , respectively.

Each team tie will be played in a best-of-five singles format, with the first side to win three rubbers advancing. A total of 64 teams in both men’s and women’s categories are divided into 16 groups of four. The top-ranked teams, along with hosts England, begin in Stage 1a, while the remaining teams compete in Stage 1b. Teams progress through group and seeding rounds, with the knockout stage beginning from the Round of 32 , culminating in the finals. The championship will conclude on May 10 .

China continues to dominate the competition, having won nearly all editions since the tournament became a standalone event in 2000. Sweden (men, 2000) and Singapore (women, 2010) are the only other nations to have claimed the titles so far.

India’s men’s team, led by world No. 38 Manav Thakkar , have been placed in Group 7 of Stage 1b alongside Slovakia, Tunisia and Guatemala. The women’s team, spearheaded by world No. 49 Manika Batra , are in Group 6 of Stage 1b , where they will face Ukraine, Uganda and Rwanda.

The Indian men’s squad comprises Manav Thakkar, Manush Shah, G Sathiyan, Harmeet Desai and Payas Jain, while the women’s team includes Manika Batra, Yashaswini Ghorpade, Diya Chitale, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Syndrela Das.

In India, the matches will be available for live streaming on the WTT official website , while television coverage will be provided by Eurosport channels .

The tournament schedule begins with group stage matches from April 28 to April 30 , followed by preliminary and seeding rounds from May 1 to May 3 . The knockout rounds start on May 4 with the Round of 32 , followed by the Round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the finals on May 10 .