In a team match each country or club puts out a small squad, usually three players, and they play a series of individual matches against the other side. Each win counts as one point for the team, and the first team to win a majority of the matches wins the tie, the usual name for the whole team contest. Most international ties are the best of five matches, so the first team to three wins. The order of play, and whether there is a doubles match, depends on the event.
Every individual match inside a tie is scored in the normal way, in games to 11. If you need a reminder, start with how scoring works.
The letters: ABC against XYZ
The ITTF's regulations for international competitions set out five standard team systems. In each one, the right to be the ABC team or the XYZ team is decided by lot, and before the tie each captain gives every singles player a letter. The letters fix who plays whom. The pairs for a doubles match need not be named until the end of the singles match before it, which lets a captain react to the score.
Under the ITTF rules, a team match ends as soon as one side has won a majority of the possible matches, so in a best-of-five tie that reaches 3-0 the last two matches are not played.
World Team Championships: five singles
The World Team Championships, held in even-numbered years, use what the ITTF's regulations call the New Swaythling Cup system, named after the men's team trophy. Each team plays three players and there is no doubles. The order is A v X, B v Y, C v Z, A v Y and B v X, and each match is the best of five games. The first team to three wins goes through.
The order means the two strongest players on each side can meet twice. A team with two outstanding players and a weaker third can still win 3-2, which is why the No 1 and No 2 choices matter so much. Our guide to the World Championships covers how teams qualify.
The Olympic format: doubles first
At Paris 2024 each country entered a team of three. The tie opened with a doubles, B and C against Y and Z, followed by A v X, C v Z, A v Y and B v X. Every match was the best of five games, and the first team to three wins took the tie. Each player could play no more than two matches, so the A player, who sat out the doubles, could play two singles.
Putting the doubles first gives it extra weight: the team that wins it starts the singles a point up. At Rio 2016 the doubles came third instead.
The men's and women's team events are not on the programme for Los Angeles 2028. In their place is a new mixed team event, whose playing format had not been announced on the ITTF's LA28 pages when this guide was written. Our guide to Olympic qualification has the details known so far.
The Mixed Team World Cup: first to eight games
The ITTF Mixed Team World Cup, first held in 2023, counts games rather than matches. A tie has five matches in a set order: mixed doubles, women's singles and men's singles, then women's doubles and men's doubles, in an order chosen by the captain of the lower-ranked team. Every match is exactly three games, so it ends 3-0 or 2-1, and the first team to eight games wins.
Players who play the mixed doubles cannot play the singles, and no player takes part in more than two matches. Because every game counts, a team can lose a match and still gain ground. The World Cups guide explains the rest of the event.
Other ITTF systems
The regulations also allow a best-of-five format with four singles and a doubles placed third, the Corbillon Cup system, for teams of two to four players. There is a best-of-seven format with six singles and one doubles, and a best-of-nine format with nine singles between two teams of three, in which every player meets every opponent once.
Team matches in England
Most club players in England play their competitive table tennis as team matches in a local league. League teams are usually two or three players. A common format is three a side, with each player meeting each opponent for nine singles, and in many leagues a doubles to make 10. English leagues often call each individual match a set, and each set is usually the best of five games. Leagues usually award one point for each set won, so a result might read 6-4 rather than a simple win or loss. Captains take turns to name their players first.
The national British Clubs League uses bigger formats: in the 2024-25 season the Premier Division played six singles and a doubles each match.
Your next steps
If you want to play in a team yourself, read how to find a club and join a league. To follow the professionals, see how the doubles rules work, since doubles decides so many ties.