Chinese players spread in all four quarters for the men's and the women's singles competitions in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Table Tennis Championships Finals in Durban, South Africa, according to the draw results on Thursday.

As the men's singles No. 1 seed, Fan Zhendong gets a bye in the first round. His first major challenge may be Wong Chun-ting of China's Hong Kong or Qiu Dang of Germany. If Fan reaches the quarterfinals, he may have a rematch with Swedish rising star Truls Moregard after defeating Moregard 4-0 (11–6, 11–9, 11–7, 11–8) in the tournament's final in Houston two years ago.

Liang Jingkun is in the other quarter of the top half of the men's singles event. His biggest opponent will be Tomokazu Harimoto of Japan, but before the two can meet, Liang will need to go through Alexis Lebrun of France and Darko Jorgic of Croatia first.

Ma Long, Lin Gaoyuan and Wang Chuqin are all in the bottom half. Having been drawn into the same quarter, Ma and Lin will have to beat Kristian Karlsson of Sweden, Lim Jong-hoon of South Korea and Lin Yun-ju of Chinese Taipei before playing each other in the quarterfinals. As for Wang Chuqin, Hugo Calderano of Brazil, Mattias Falck of Sweden, Jang Woo-jin of South Korea and Patrick Franziska of Germany all wait to challenge the No. 2 seed from China.

As the women's singles No. 1 seed, Sun Yingsha also gets a bye in the first round. After that, both Yuan Jia Nan of France and Han Ying of Germany will be the main obstacles in her way to the quarterfinals.

Sun's teammate Wang Yidi is the other quarter of the top half, together with Hina Hayata, Miu Hirano and Miyuu Nagasaki of Japan, as well as Doo Hoi Kem of China's Hong Kong and Jeon Ji-hee of South Korea.

Chen Meng is in the bottom half and the same quarter with China's biggest challenger Mima Ito of Japan. Chen Xingtong and Wang Manyu are most likely to play the first women's singles China derby in the other quarter of the bottom half, as long as they don't lose to Cheng I-ching of Chinese Taipei.

The Championships Finals will take place from May 20 to 28 in Durban. It's the first edition of the tournament held in South Africa and the second world table tennis event in Africa since the World Table Tennis Championships in Cairo, Egypt in 1939.