Niwa, the 2010 Summer Youth Olympic Games champion, is the top seed in the tournament.

The Japanese star is currently ranked 15th in the world and his closest rival appears to be Portugal's Tiago Apolonia who sits in 18th at present.

Both Niwa and Apolonia, who won a gold medal at the 2015 European Games in Baku in Azerbaijan in the team event, are yet to know their first round opponents as a qualifying process is still to take place.

Austria's Stefan Fegerl, seeded third in the competition, will certainly be buoyed by the support he is bound to receive and the world number 22 could certainly be a threat in the competition.

Former World Junior Table Tennis Championships winner Chen Chien-an of Chinese Taipei will also be in action along with Brazilian Hugo Calderano who won team and indiviudal gold medals at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto.

Meanwhile in the women's competition, the focus will be on Cheng I-ching of Chinese Taipei as the world number eight is the favourite to win in Linz.

Cheng, who was knocked out in the quarter-finals of the women's singles competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, will potentially face Mima Ito of Japan in the latter stages.

The 16-year-old became the youngest Olympic table tennis player to win a medal in the women's team category when Japan took the bronze medal in the Rio de Janeiro earlier this year.

Elsewhere, Zeng Jian of Singapore arrives in Austria in good form and will be looking to capitalise on her recent success where she won the under-21 women's singles title at the 2016 China Open in September.

Xiaona Shan of Germany is the only non-Asian player in the top ten seeds and she will be seeking an individual medal to go with her Rio 2016 team silver.

Action begins tomorrow with a day full of qualifying matches across men's and women's singles as well as both competitions in the under-21 categories.

The competition is scheduled to conclude with finals on Sunday (November 13).