China's Ma Long is returning to the World Cup stage ©Getty Images

China's Ma Long will seek to regain his stranglehold on the three biggest titles in the sport when the International Table Tennis Federation World Cup begins tomorrow in Liège.

The reigning world and Olympic singles champion did not participate in last year's World Cup but will seek a third title after victories in 2012 and 2015.

It marks his first major event on the ITTF stage since he and other leading members of the Chinese national team withdrew mid-tournament from the China Open in June in apparent protest against the removal of Liu Guoliang as their head coach.

A total of 20 players from all six continents will participate in the three-day event at the Country Hall De Liège.

The 12 lowest ranked players will first compete in four groups, with the winner of each then due to join the eight seeds in the knock-out stage.

Lin Gaoyuan is only other Chinese player to feature after securing a berth by virtue of winning the 2017 ITTF-Asian Cup.

This means that defending champion and world number two Fan Zhendong and third ranked Xu Xin are each absent due to a rule in which no country can have more than two entrants.

Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Timo Boll will seek to upset the Chinese favourites.

Ovtcharov, ranked fourth in the world, won the ITTF-Europe Top 16 Cup in February before China Open glory, while fifth ranked Boll will seek to wind back the clock and repeat his 2002 and 2005 victories. 

Boll won the Korean Open in April before pushing Ma to six sets in an engrossing 4-2 quarter-final defeat at the World Championships.

German veteran Timo Boll is hoping to continue his strong recent form ©Getty Images
German veteran Timo Boll is hoping to continue his strong recent form ©Getty Images

Russia's Alexander Shibaev, France's Simon Gauzy and Ukraine's Kou Lei are other European qualifiers.

Portugal's Marcos Freitas received a wildcard entry and Cedric Nuytinck of Belgium gained a host nation spot.

Olympic singles bronze medallist Jun Mizutani of Japan will be among leading international rivals as he seeks to recover from the disappointment of a shock second round defeat at the World Championships to 14-year-old compatriot Tomokazu Harimoto, absent this week.

World Championships bronze medallist Lee Sang-su of South Korea is another strong entrant.

Koki Niwa of Japan and Jeong Sangeun of South Korea will also compete alongside Taiwanese duo Chen Chien-An and Chuang Chih-Yuan.

Two African representatives, Nigeria's Quadri Aruna and Egypt's Omar Assar, will be other outside contenders. 

They are joined by Brazil's Gustavo Tsuboi, United States' Kanak Jha and Australia's David Powell.

The event will be followed by the Women's World Cup in Markham in Canada, scheduled to take place from October 27 to 29.