2026 ITTF-ATTU Asian Cup

The 2026 ITTF-ATTU Asian Cup is the 35th edition of the Asian Cup. It will be held from 4 to 8 February 2026 at the Wuyuan River Stadium in Haikou, China.^[1] Players who reach the semifinals in this tournament will qualify for the 2026 ITTF World Cup.^[2]

The detailed rules for the playing system of the 2026 ITTF-ATTU Asian Cup are as follows:^[3]

Seeding for this event will be based on the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Singles Rankings published in week 6 of 2026 (3 February 2026). The tournament will be conducted in two stages.

The first stage is a group round. Thirty-two players will be divided into 8 groups of 4 players each, playing a round-robin within their group. The group draw method is as follows: the 8 highest-ranked players will be placed into Groups A to H in order; the remaining players will be allocated to the groups in sets of four according to their ranking using a modified 'snake' system. To ensure fairness, players from the same national or regional association will be drawn into different groups during the draw. After the group matches, the top two players from each group will advance to the second stage.

The second stage is a knockout stage, conducted as a single-elimination tournament. The draw for the knockout stage has specific rules: the winner of Group A is fixed in position 1, and the winner of Group B is fixed in position 16; the winners of Groups C and D will be drawn by lot into positions 8 or 9; the winners of Groups E to H will be randomly drawn into positions 4, 5, 12, or 13. The runners-up from each group will be randomly drawn into the remaining positions, with one key restriction: the two players from the same group in the first stage must be drawn into different halves of the knockout stage draw. Additionally, the association avoidance rule will not be applied in the knockout stage.

Regarding the match format, all matches in the first-stage group round will be best-of-five games. In the second stage, the round of 16 matches will be best-of-five games, while the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final will be best-of-seven games.

The seeding will be based on the ITTF World Ranking lists published prior to the event. The seeded players will be as follows:

• ITTF official Website