By Tom Degun

ITTF World TourJune 5 - Following the successful World Championships in Paris, the world's top professional table tennis will be  next week heading back to the lucrative 2013 ITTF World Tour.


This year, the World Tour offers a record of over $2,500,000 (£1,611,250/€1,892,091) in prize money, including a purse of $1,000,000 (£644,600/€756,896) for the Grand Finals in early 2014 where the men's and women's singles champions will pick up $100,000 (£64,460/€75,689) each.

The 2013 World Tour heads to Changchun in China from June 12 until 16 before it goes to Yokohama in Japan from June 19 to 23 June.

The two events in Asia come following earlier competitions in Spain, Austria, Kuwait, Qatar, Korea, Cairo and Croatia.

Over the remaining 2013 World Tour events, the world's best table tennis players will look to gather enough points to be in the top 15, which will secure them invitations to the World Tour Grand Finals.

"The ITTF is very proud to be able to raise the prize money to the level where we are able to put the money into the people who deserve it, the stars of our sport, the athletes," said ITTF President Adham Sharara.

"We will continue to work hard to bring new partners and new sponsors to invest in our sport, to keep raising the level of prize money on offer."

In addition to the outstanding prize money on offer for the ITTF World Tour, the world's leading table tennis players are also competing for a total prize pool of $568,000 (£365,906/€429,683) over three World Cups.

They are the World Team Classic this month in Guangzhou, China, the women's World Cup in September in Kobe, Japan, and the men's World Cup in October in Verviers, Belgium.

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