With the Team World Cup less than a month away, US team members are tuning up in Germany. Officially commencing on November 6, the ZEN-NOH 2019 ITTF Team World Cup will feature representatives from each continent duking it out for global supremacy in Tokyo. Naturally, China will be there, but not because of its #1 ranking. Rather, both the Chinese women's and men's teams won gold at the 2019 Asian Championships, thus earning them automatic berths in the Team World Cup. The United States' teams also qualified via continental championships, although less convincingly. In the 2018 Pan Am championships, both the USA women's and men's teams took second place to Brazil, disappointing results but good enough to qualify. The USA women's team, ranked a very respectable 16th in the world, will consist of Amy Wang, Wu Yue and Lily Zhang. Of the three, the latter two are currently entered in the 2019 ITTF World Tour Platinum German Open. The American gentlemen's contingent, ranked a more distant 31st in the world, takes the forms of Yijun Feng, Kai Zhang and Kanak Jha. Again, the latter two are gaining invaluable experience at the German Open. With many players from the Chinese, Japanese, German, Brazilian and other top teams also tuning up for the Team World Cup, the German Open is the ideal opportunity for the American players to gain confidence in international competition. After all, they have a score to settle with Brazil.

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