Doha: The GAC Group 2014 ITTF World Tour, which kicks off today in Hungary, is looking to be the best in history.
The GAC Group 2014 ITTF World Tour promises to be bigger and better than 2013 with more prize money, more events, more players, more spectators and more TV exposure than ever before. The world’s best table tennis players will be playing for a record $2,739,700 of prize money over 22 events in 22 countries.
$500,000 will be the prize purse at the Qatar Open in February, which makes it the highest prize money for a World Tour event in history outside the World Tour Grand Finals, which will again be $1,000,000 in 2014.
ITTF’s CEO Judit FARAGO stated: “With the help of our title partner GAC Group, we are very happy to break our record for prize money in 2014. Our goal is to also beat the record of 1,392 players from 83 associations playing in the 2013 Tour.”
New World Tour stops in 2014 include Chile, Australia, Nigeria, Argentina and the Philippines, which means that the GAC Group 2014 World Tour will touch all corners of the globe in 2014, making it a truly international tour. As was the case in 2013, the GAC Group 2014 ITTF World Tour will be split up into three tiers (highest first): Super (6 events), Major (4 events), Challenge (11 events). The higher the series, the more prize money, World ranking points, World Tour ranking points and higher quality of competition on offer.
The top 16 singles and top 8 doubles pairs from the GAC Group 2014 World Tour will then be invited to the prestigious 1 million dollar World Tour Grand Finals at the end of the year, a location to be announced later.
ITTF’s 530,000 social media followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Sina and Tenent Weibo will be in a prime position to receive exclusive content from what will be the most social #ITTFWorldTour in history.
The Peninsula
