World Table Tennis (WTT), the company that runs the professional circuit, grades its tournaments in a pyramid. At the top are the four Grand Smashes, then the WTT Champions events, then Star Contenders, Contenders and, at the bottom, Feeder events. The higher the level, the stronger the field, the bigger the prize fund and the more world ranking points the winners take home. The season closes with the WTT Finals for the year's best players.

If you are not sure how WTT relates to the sport's governing body, start with our guide to the ITTF and WTT.

How to read the pyramid

Three things change as you go up a level: who can get in, what the winner earns and how many events there are. Entry is mainly by world ranking, with places for qualifiers, wildcards chosen by the host and a few players nominated by WTT. Ranking points decide future entries, so a player usually climbs the pyramid one level at a time.

The winner's points for each level are fixed by the ITTF's world ranking regulations:

Grand Smash: 2,000. WTT Finals: 1,500. WTT Champions: 1,000. WTT Star Contender: 600. WTT Contender: 400. WTT Feeder: 125.

Players lower down earn a share of those points by round. Losing finalists at a Grand Smash, for example, get 1,400.

Grand Smashes

The Grand Smashes are WTT's equivalent of tennis's grand slams. There are four in 2026: Singapore, the United States, Europe (held in Sweden) and China. Each runs for more than a week, with men's and women's singles, men's, women's and mixed doubles, and singles draws of 64.

They carry the biggest prize funds on the circuit. The 2026 Singapore Smash had a total of US$1.55m, with US$100,000 for each singles winner.

Until February 2025 the leading players were required to enter every Grand Smash. WTT dropped that rule to give players more control over their schedules, and they can now also skip two WTT Champions events a year.

WTT Champions

WTT Champions events are short and elite: men's and women's singles only, with draws of 32 made up mostly of the world's top-ranked players and no doubles. That means world-class matches from the first round. There were six in 2025. In 2026, WTT Champions Frankfurt has a prize fund of US$500,000, and each singles winner receives US$40,000 and 1,000 ranking points.

Star Contenders and Contenders

Together these make up the WTT Contender Series. They have qualifying rounds and include doubles as well as singles, so they are busy, week-long tournaments with a mix of established players and newcomers.

A Star Contender lasts six days and has a main singles draw of 48, including up to six players from the world's top 20. There are about six a year, with prize funds of around US$250,000 to US$300,000. WTT Star Contender Chennai in February 2026 offered US$300,000, with US$17,000 for a singles winner. London staged its first Star Contender, at the Copper Box Arena, in October 2025.

A Contender is a step lower, with singles draws of 32 and prize funds of up to about US$100,000.

Feeders and Youth events

The WTT Feeder Series, introduced in January 2022, is the entry level. Prize funds are small, around US$30,000, and the series was designed for young players who need time to develop and for established players coming back from injury, a break or a loss of form, who can earn ranking points to get back into the bigger events.

Alongside it, the WTT Youth Series runs international events for juniors.

The WTT Finals

The WTT Finals end the season. Qualification counts only WTT events: a player's four best Grand Smash results, four best Champions results and six best Contender Series results. The top 16 men and women play a straight knockout, all best of seven games, and eight mixed doubles pairs play in two groups. The singles winners earn 1,500 ranking points. The 2026 WTT Finals are in Hong Kong from 8 to 13 December.

What is not a WTT event

The biggest titles in the sport are not on the WTT circuit at all. The World Championships, the Olympic Games and the World Cups belong to the ITTF. The World Championships and the Olympics are worth as many ranking points to a singles winner as a Grand Smash, and they carry far more prestige. Our guide to how the world rankings work explains how all of these points add up.

Your next steps

See which events are coming up on our events calendar, check who has been earning the points on the world rankings, and read about the biggest title of all in our guide to the World Championships.