Competition Format

Singles

Singles events are played in knock-out and play-off.

The winner of each match will advance to the next round. And the loser will be eliminated. The winners of the two semifinal matches will advance to the gold medal match, the winner of this match will receive the gold medal and the loser will receive the silver medal. The losers of the two semifinal matches will compete for the bronze medal.

All matches shall be the best of seven games, each game with 11 points. A game shall be won by the player first scoring 11 points unless both players score 10 points, when the game shall be won by the first player subsequently gaining a lead of 2 points. There is an interval of up to 1 minute between successive games of an individual match; a player may claim one time-out period of up to 1 minute during an individual match. Players may receive advice from coach during the intervals between games or during other authorized suspension of the play.

Teams

The teams competition will be held in 2 stages. The first stage is group round robin; the second stage is knock-out.

In the first stage, the 16 participating teams will be divided into 4 groups of 4 teams (Groups A-D). The 4 highest ranked teams will go to Group A to D respectively. The remaining teams will be drawn in ranking order, 2 at a time into Groups A, B, C and D. The group round robin system will be used to decide the places in each group.

In the second stage, the winning teams of each group shall play-off, in a knockout semi-final format for the Gold and Silver Medals. The second placed teams of each group and the semi-final contest losers shall play-off for the Bronze medal.

A team match at the Olympic competition is called a "contest". Each contest consists of 4 Singles matches and 1 Doubles match. All Singles matches and Doubles match in a contest are the best of 5, with no other differences from Men's and Women's Singles Event. Two teams in a contest play in the following order: