Four England players will head to a historic World Championships in Houston next month.

Liam Pitchford, Paul Drinkhall, Sam Walker and Tin-Tin Ho will be on duty in Texas – the first Worlds to be held in the USA and the first outside either Asia or Europe since Cairo hosted the 1939 edition.

The four English players are the only ones to meet the ITTF’s qualification requirements, based on a continental quota system and the world rankings. England was permitted up to five male and four female places, but only the players selected fell within the world ranking threshold.

All four will play in their respective singles events, while Pitchford & Drinkhall will compete in the men’s doubles. Ho is in the women’s doubles alongside Karoline Mischek of Austria, with whom she won the European under-21 gold medal in 2019.

The event begins on November 23, two days before the American Thanksgiving holiday, and will be the first Worlds since 2019 – the 2020 team event in Busan, Korea, was cancelled because of the pandemic.