As new season starts today, August 1, a number of important changes to competitions and rankings go live.

Anti-doping

In order to comply with the UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) framework, members will see that match-cards for TTE regulated events will now require the Coach or Captain’s details to be included for each match.

This applies at all levels, not just those matches with qualified officials, and to anyone acting in the capacity of coach or captain (eg friends, family or parents, not just TTE members or qualified/licensed coaches).

Online tournament entry

Following the transition of all national tournaments to online entry and payment, a pilot will shortly take place for online entry to regulated events such as 1* and 2* tournaments, and which will also include an online event sanctioning process for the organisers.

Eligibility

The Table Tennis England Board has agreed amended eligibility requirements at National Championships and National Cups for players who have British nationality and English residency, but may not yet be eligible to represent England in international competition due to transitioning from another association. 

Ranking Guidelines and Tournament Regulations have been updated to reflect this change.

Regulations

A number of updates and amendments have been made to the suite of Competition & Event Regulations to reflect Board’s new Advisory Committee structure, as well as participant feedback.

Rankings

A number of enhancements to the functionality of the Rankings system have been developed over summer 2023, and are planned to launch by end-August. Members will notice a brand new look to the Rankings pages on the public website, as well as a new user-interface for Rankings when logged-in to their membership profile.

The public webpages will have a new layout, with improved filter functionality, and the addition of each event name in players’ public match results.

Once logged-in, members will also see an expanded menu for rankings in their membership profile. This will include a more comprehensive personal audit function, now incorporating non-eligible matches and those against non-ranking players, and also the ability to download fully filtered ranking lists.

The way that ranking information is displayed will also now be linked to membership status. Audit and personal ranking information will be accessible to current members, and to lapsed members once they renew their membership. Public ranking lists will show the names of current members, and lapsed members will be named once they renew their membership and following the subsequent ranking run.

Lapsed member names will continue to show in results – and information on lapsed members will still be available to technical officials, the same as with inactive members, for event seeding and banding purposes.

Please note that due to launching the new interface, members will only have until Sunday August 13 following the ranking run on Wednesday August 9 to check their audit trails for issues before the season is closed and inaccessible for changes.

The 2023/34 ranking run dates and the 2023/24 opening season’s rankings will be released after the August ranking run, and will include the transition of final-year Cadets to Juniors, and final-year Juniors to Seniors.

Competition Review

Phase III of the Competition Review was paused for six months in order to consider some additional proposals from National Council. That process has now concluded, but has unavoidably changed the timeframe for Board’s decision on Phase III from March 2023 to September 2023. Consequently, there is no expectation that any changes arising from the Competition Review will now be implemented in the 2023/24 season.

Work has now begun in earnest on Phase III – which will include adding detail to each of the proposed competition formats, working-up the resource, regulatory and budget implications, and establishing clear implementation timeframes for Board to consider further in September. Watch this space for further updates on the Competition Review in the Autumn.