Five English players will be mixing it with the best in the world at the biggest WTT event of the year so far, the Singapore Smash.

Liam Pitchford, Paul Drinkhall, Sam Walker, Tom Jarvis and Tin-Tin Ho are all in the Asian city state for the tournament, which gets under way on Tuesday.

The strength of the tournament is shown by the fact that the top 10 woman and top 10 men in the world rankings are all on the entry list.

Pitchford is seeded into the main draw, but the other English players are all due to start in the singles qualifying rounds on Tuesday March-7. Tom Jarvis plays Jeremy Dey (New Caledonia – WR#119) at 2am (GMT), Sam Walker meets Lubomir Jancarik (Czechia WR#115) at 3:30am (GMT) and Paul Drinkhall takes on Maciej Kubik (Poland – WR#102) at 4:30am (GMT). Tin-Tin Ho plays Lee Zion of Korea at 12noon.

In the doubles, Pitchford & Drinkhall’s standing in the world game is reflected by their being seeded eighth. There is no other English representation in the doubles.

It will be Drinkhall’s first experience of a Smash event, and he heads to it in good form having reached the semi-finals of the recent WTT Feeder Dusseldorf.

He said: “I’m feeling good. I think I performed pretty well in Germany and it’s a good stepping-stone going into the bigger event.

“It’s my first Smash because I was injured last year, so I’m looking forward to it and excited to play. It’s certainly up there with the biggest events.

“It’s exciting to go to Singapore. WTT are trying to go to big cities and take it to the people in places where it can grow the game a lot.

“The Smash is a bit more open than the Champions Series, which is limited to the top players. You’re more likely to get some big upsets – so, to me, this is more exciting.

“I think I’m playing well and in a good place to cause one of the upsets, but on the other hand I’m somewhere in the middle of the rankings and I’m sure there’s people below me thinking the same thing.”

The Singapore Smash starts on Tuesday – visit the WTT website to find out more about how to watch live.