Professional table tennis runs on the calendar year. The season starts in early January with WTT events in Doha, builds through a world championships in spring and four Grand Smashes spread across the year, and ends in December with the WTT Finals. Club leagues follow a different rhythm, roughly August to May, like football. This guide uses the 2026 calendar as the example; dates move a little each year, but the pattern holds.
If the event names are unfamiliar, read the WTT events explained first.
January and February
The year begins in the Gulf. In 2026 WTT Champions Doha ran from 7 to 11 January. Early February brings the ITTF Continental Cups, which decide many of the places at the World Cup, and Europe's version, the Europe Top 16 Cup.
The first Grand Smash follows. The Singapore Smash ran from 19 February to 1 March in 2026.
March and April
WTT Champions Chongqing came in mid-March, then the ITTF Men's and Women's World Cup in Macao, from 30 March to 5 April. In England, March is the time of the senior National Championships: the 2026 event was in Nottingham from 20 to 22 March, and the 2027 one is set for 19 to 21 March.
May: the World Championships
The World Championships usually fall in late April or May. They alternate: team events in even-numbered years and individual events in odd-numbered years. In 2026 the World Team Championships were played in London from 28 April to 10 May, the ITTF's centenary year. The 2027 individual Worlds go to Astana, Kazakhstan. Our guide to the World Championships explains both formats.
May is also when the club season ends. The German Bundesliga finished with its Final4 in Frankfurt on 30 and 31 May 2026, and the men's European Champions League Final 4 is due in Saarbrücken on 8 and 9 May 2027.
June to August
June is the quietest stretch for the top players: a run of European Contender events and the World Masters Championships for veteran players. The second Grand Smash, the United States Smash, then runs from late June into early July. In 2026 it was held in Ontario, California, near Los Angeles, from 26 June to 5 July.
China's Super League fits around the tour. In 2026 its first two stages were played in late July and early August, with the finals on 25 to 27 December.
August is the busiest month of the tour. In 2026 WTT Champions Yokohama ran from 5 to 9 August, overlapping with the Europe Smash, the third Grand Smash, in Malmö from 8 to 16 August.
The club season starts again at the same time. The Bundesliga's 2026-27 season began on 16 August, and the Champions League's first stage was played in Lille from 28 to 30 August. In England, the Table Tennis England (TTE) season and membership year run from 1 August to 31 July.
September and October
WTT Champions Macao ran from 8 to 13 September. In Asian Games years, such as 2026, the Games add another major event in September. The China Smash, the last Grand Smash, is in Beijing in the first half of October, from 1 to 11 October in 2026.
October is also continental championships month. In 2026 the European Championships were in Ljubljana from 11 to 18 October, the Asian Championships in Tashkent from 19 to 25 October and the African Championships in Tangier from 18 to 25 October.
Back home, English local leagues start in September and mostly run until March, and the British Clubs League starts its weekends in the second half of September.
November and December
Two WTT Champions events in Europe, Montpellier and Frankfurt, run back to back from late October into early November. Then come the Mixed Team World Cup in Chengdu, starting at the end of November, and the WTT Finals in Hong Kong in December. After that the tour stops for a few weeks until Doha.
The rankings never stop
Through all of this, the ITTF world rankings are updated every week. From 2026 they are published on Mondays, so a Sunday final shows up in the next day's list. Our guide to how the world rankings work explains how points from each event count.
Your next steps
Check what is on this month on our events calendar, see who is climbing the world rankings, and read about the World Cups and the WTT Finals that end each year.