The 24th Golden Racket International Table Tennis Tournament kicked off in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau on July 13.

The even, which will run until July 18, is being jointly held by the Vietnam Table Tennis Federation, the HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the HCM City Table Tennis Federation, the Oil and Gas Culture, Sports Joint Stock Company and the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The event has attracted 106 players from seven countries and territories, including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Republic of Korea (RoK), Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

This year, the RoK team, with the largest number of players, is expected to be the tournamen’s favourites.

The Vietnamese teams include the national team, a team from HCM City and the Petro Vietnam club.

The PetroVietnam club team will include Doan Kien Quoc, the country’s No.1 player and Tran Tuan Quynh from the national team plus three Chinese players, Kou Lei, Yang Cei and Yang Xin.

This is the first year that the tournament has been held outside of HCM City./.