ITTF Mixed Team World Cup 2025: Manav, Manika to lead India in now Olympic event – Preview

Ace paddlers Manika Batra, and Manav Thakkar will lead the Indian contingent at the 2025 ITTF Mixed Team World Cup, which is all set to commence in Chengdu, China on Sunday.

This is the first edition of the Mixed Team World Cup since the mixed team event was added to the Olympic roster for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games earlier this year. 

Joining Batra and Thakkar for the event will be veteran Olympian Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Akash Pal, the young Payas Jain, Yashashwini Ghorpade, Swastika Ghosh, and Diya Chitale.

Format

The 2025 ITTF Mixed Team World Cup will be played in three stages with 16 teams from across the globe in contention.

In the first stage, the 16 teams will be divided into a four groups of four teams each. Each team will play a group stage round-robin, with the top two teams from the group advancing to the next stage.

In the second stage, the qualified teams from Stage 1 will all compete in a single group. All teams will play each other with the exception that teams having played each other in Stage 1 will not play again, but the results from Stage 1 will carry forward to Stage 2.

The top four teams will then move into the semi-finals.

Each tie will consist of five matches in the following order: Mixed Doubles, Women's Singles, Men's Singles, followed by Women's Doubles and Men's Doubles as decided by the captain of the lower ranked team as soon as the end of the mixed doubles match.

The players competing in mixed doubles cannot compete in the singles matches.

Each match will consist of three games. The third game will be played even if a player or pair, takes an unassailable 2-0 lead in the match.

The first team to win 8 games, wins the tie. This means that if a team wins the mixed doubles and women's singles match 3-0 apiece and then takes a 2-0 lead in men's doubles, they'll be declared the winners.

Groups

India has been drawn in Group 2 for the first stage of the competition. They'll face off against Japan, Australia, and Croatia to secure a spot in the second stage.

Group 1: China, Egypt, Hong Kong China, Chile

Group 2: Japan, India, Australia, Croatia

Group 3: South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Sweden, USA

Group 4: Germany, France, Romania, Brazil

India's past performance

The 2025 ITTF Mixed Team World Cup will mark the third edition of the tournament. The previous two edition was also held in China and they clinched the gold medals on both occasions.

India, meanwhile, has never advanced past the first stage and will look to change that this time around.

Indian team

Manav Thakkar, Akash Pal, Sathiyan Gnansekaran, Payas Jain Manika Batra, Diya Chitale, Yashashwini Ghorpade, Swastika Ghosh

Schedule

The 2025 ITTF Mixed Team World Cup will be held from 30 November to 7 December, 2025.

Where to Watch?

You can catch all the LIVE action from 2025 ITTF Mixed Team World Cup on the ITTF World YouTube channel.