Women’s World Cup heads to Europe for the first time

Linz Austria has won the right to host the 2014 ITTF Women’s World Cup which is one of the most prestigious events on the ITTF calendar. The 2014 edition of the Women’s World Cup will take place at the Sportpark Lissfeld on 17-19 October 201

Linz Austria has won the right to host the 2014 ITTF Women’s World Cup which is one of the most prestigious events on the ITTF calendar. The 2014 edition of the Women’s World Cup will take place at the Sportpark Lissfeld on 17-19 October 2014.

Linz will have the honour of hosting the first ever Women’s World Cup outside Asia where it has been traditionally held every year since it’s inception in 1996.

On the historic announcement ITTF’s CEO Judit FARAGO stated: “The ITTF is very pleased to allocate the 2014 Women’s World Cup to the Austrian Table Tennis Association who are very experienced organisers and have a rich tradition in table tennis. The ITTF will make history with the Women’s World Cup this year as it is hosted first time outside Asia. Hopefully it will give further motivation to the top European players to challenge their Asian and global rivals.”

The ITTF Women’s World Cup involves the world’s best 20 players that have qualified for the event through their Continental Cup’s held over the past six months.

Linz is no stranger to hosting big events as they hosted the 2009 ITTF World Team Cup which was a huge success.

One person that will be more excited than most about the world title event heading to Linz is world number 10 LIU Jia (AUT). The Austrian was among the first one to qualify for the Women’s World Cup back in February by winning the DHS Europe Cup the qualification tournament in Europe. This will be the 9th time that 32 year old has played in the Women’s World Cup and her home crowd will be cheering her towards her first ever World Cup medal.

The players that have qualified through their Continental Cups and will compete for Women’s World Cup glory are:

DHS 2014 Europe Cup: LI Jiao (NED) LIU Jia (AUT) Viktoria PAVLOVICH (BLR) GAC 2014 Honda Asian Cup: DING Ning (CHN) LI Xiaoxia (CHN) & YU Mengyu (SIN) K-Sport 2014 ITTF-Oceania Cup: LAY Jianfang (AUS)

2014 ITTF-Latin America Cup: Caroline KUMAHARA (BRA)

2014 ITTF-Africa Cup: Dina MESHREF (EGY)

2014 ITTF-North America Cup: ZHANG Mo (CAN) Invitations for the additional places to make up the 20 will be based on the September 2014 world ranking on those who participated in the Continental Cups but did not gain an automatic qualification position.

The LIEBHERR Men’s World Cup will be held the following week in Düsseldorf Germany on 24-26 October 2014.