North Korean players are due to participate in South Korea later this month ©ITTF

North Korean players are due to participate at next month's International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Korean Open in Daejeon in what is already being hailed as another example of "Ping Pong Diplomacy".

The ITTF, like other sporting bodies, are desperate to use inter-Korean unity as a means to showcase their relevance, and are hoping to build on the unified women's team which played at May's World Team Championships in Halmstad.

North and South Korean players joined together to lose to Japan in the semi-finals after they were drawn to face each other in the quarter-finals.

The move was considered controversial by some as the rules were changed mid-competition.

Olympic bronze medallist Kim Song I is among North Koreans to have entered for the ITTF Platinum World Tour Korean Open so far, which is due to take place at the Daejeon Hanbat Stadium in the South from July 17 to 22.

Eight players are currently entered in the men's and women's events.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, has met with his southern counterpart Moon Jae-in on South Korean soil this year ©Getty Images
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, has met with his southern counterpart Moon Jae-in on South Korean soil this year ©Getty Images

"It is a proud moment for the ITTF to be able to support another sign of peace on the Korean Peninsula, by helping North Korea send a team to the Korean Open," said ITTF President Thomas Weikert in a special announcement of the entries.

"After the momentous unified team at the 2018 World Table Tennis Championships which showed the world that countries can find peace on a table tennis table."

Players from the two Koreas, China and Japan participated in a friendly event in Lausanne to mark Olympic Day last month.

Attempts to persuade South Korean players to compete north of the border at a challenger event in Pyongyang last month were unsuccessful, however.

There will also be no unified Korean team at the Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang this year as both countries prioritise their medal ambitions, although a unified team will compete in dragon boat racing, lightweight rowing and women's basketball.

Reigning world and Olympic women's singles champion Ding Ning of China is among other high profile entries for the Korean Open.

A table tennis competition between the United States and China was famously used to symbolise a thaw in relations between the two countries in the early 1970s. 

The event, known thereafter as "Ping Pong Diplomacy" saw the American team visit Beijing in April 1971, becoming the first American delegation to visit China since 1949 when Mao Zedong's Communist Party seized power.