Ping Pong at the Ally Pally returns

Matchroom Article Following the unqualified success of its 2013 debut, Matchroom Sport are delighted to announce tickets are now on sale for the World Championship of Ping Pong 2014 at Alexandra Palace, London on January 4 & 5.

Live on Sky Sports in the UK, 64 of the world's best players will take part in the two-day tournament with a substantial prize fund and tickets are on sale now at SeeTickets.com (search ‘Ping Pong’) and at www.worldchampionshipofpingpong.net.

Using traditional sandpaper rackets, the World Championship of Ping Pong is a throwback to the early days of table tennis and is catapulting ping pong into the big league and onto the international television stage.

Qualifiers are being staged for the 2014 World Championship of Ping Pong in 21 countries around the world, with the first names already confirmed for Alexandra Palace.

All eight 2013 quarter-finalists are invited back, and 2013 champion Maxim Shmyrev has confirmed he will defend his title in London. He will be joined by qualifiers including England’s Denis Neale, Dutchman Lars Adema and Lithuanian female star Egle Adomelyte.

Matchroom Sport Chairman Barry Hearn said: “I am thrilled that once again we are staging the World Championship of Ping Pong in London. This year’s tournament was the start of something really quite exciting and we are building on that for 2014. We are staging qualifiers all over the world and players are desperate to be a part of this.

“We are taking the sport back to its purest form, back to the old days when it was just a bit of wood and a piece of sandpaper. It’s all about player versus player, not scientist versus scientist, and that is what I love about it.

“This year was great but you’d better get your tickets quickly because next year is going to be even better.”

Tickets are on sale now priced £10 for afternoon sessions and £15 for evenings.

The tournament takes place over four sessions, with a double elimination group stage featuring eight groups played out on eight tables on the Saturday afternoon before the last 32 enter a knockout stage played across two tables in the evening.

On Sunday morning the last 16 will be whittled down to eight quarter-finalists, who will proceed to the evening session to battle it out for the 2014 World Championship of Ping Pong crown. http://youtu.be/GmK5lw6UBTI

Confirmed participants for the 2014 World Championship of Ping Pong