The tournament features the world’s best eight men and eight women from the 2019-2020 season, with winners of Platinum events also being granted entry.

Gawad triumphed at the competition last year by overcoming fellow Egyptian Mohamed Abouelghar in the men’s final.

He will hope for further success at the Mall of Arabia.

Gawad has been drawn into Group A alongside world number two Ali Farag of Egypt and Peru’s Diego Elías.

Germany’s Simon Rösner completes the group due to world number one Mohamed ElShorbagy choosing not to play for personal reasons.

Group B features Egypt’s Tarek Momen and Marwan ElShorbagy, as well as New Zealand’s Paul Coll and Wales’ Joel Makin.

Nouran Gohar headlines the women’s competition as she takes the court for the first time as the world number one.

She takes over from fellow Egyptian and the tournament’s reigning champion Raneem El Welily, who announced her retirement from the sport earlier this year.

Gohar faces the challenge of compatriot Nour El Sherbini, England’s Sarah-Jane Perry and New Zealand’s Joelle King in Group A.

Last year’s runner-up Camille Serme of France features in Group B, alongside the United States’ Amanda Sobhy.

Egypt’s Nour El Tayeb and Hania El Hammamy complete the group.

The event features a round-robin format for the first four days of play, with the top two from each group going through to the semi finals.

All group matches and the semi-finals with be played as best-of-three matches, while the finals will use the standard best-of-five format.

Players are awarded four points for a straight-games win, while a 2-1 win earns them three points.

A 2-1 loss will see the player secure one point, with nothing awarded for a straight-games loss.

If two players are tied on points come the end pf the round-robin stage, then the player with the better head-to-head record will take the higher spot in the group.

Should three players be tied on the same number of points, then the player with the highest percentage of points won will take the top spot out of the three in that group.

The winner of Group A will meet the Group B runner-up in the semi-final and vice versa.

Winners of the semi-finals will contest the finals on Sunday (October 4).

A $370,000 (£290,000/€318,000) prize fund will be split equally across both the women’s and men’s events.