The Swedish International Open, scheduled to happen between November 30 and December 5 in Helsingborg, was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic and confirmed the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and Swedish Table Tennis Association on Wednesday.

"We made a very brave attempt to resume the international table tennis action here in Sweden, and the event had attracted a lot of interest with several entries. However, health must always come first and, with the recent increase of COVID-19 cases and new restrictions applied by the Public Health Agency of Sweden, unfortunately, we simply cannot stage this event anymore," said Petra Sorling, Chairman of the Swedish Table Tennis Association.

Like other European countries, Sweden has been going through a new wave of the fast growth of coronavirus infection cases, and that's why the Public Health Agency of Sweden began to implement a new series of restriction policies.

As a result, the Swedish Open was removed from the calendar.

The good news for table tennis fans was that there will still be multiple international events happening in November, and they are major ones as well. First, the ITTF Women's World Cup is about to occur in Weihai, east China's Shandong Province, between November 8 and 10. Then from November 13 to 15, the Men's World Cup will be held by the same city. Four days later, top table tennis players worldwide will gather in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, to compete in the ITTF World Tour Grand Finals.

According to Tencent Sports, many players have already arrived in China and started quarantine as China's COVID-19 protocols are required. They included Jang Woo-jin and Jeon Ji-hee of South Korea, Mima Ito, and Kasumi Ishikawa of Japan, Dimitrij Ovtcharov, and Han Ying of Germany. China's Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, Ma Long, and Fan Zhendong will also attend the events to compete with the above international aces.