Introducing TTRA: one rating for Asia's players, one system for its organisers
Entering a local table tennis event still means a WhatsApp thread, a PDF form and a photographed bank slip. TTRA gives players a rating that follows them between clubs, and gives organisers software that runs the day.
Table tennis is one of the most played sports in the world — an estimated 300 million people play it, and at least 40 million of them compete. Asia is where the sport is deepest: the region holds close to half the world's table tennis equipment market, and in China it is the single most-followed sport in the country.
And yet the way most players enter a local event in this region has barely changed in fifteen years. The event is announced in a WhatsApp group. The entry form is a spreadsheet that gets photographed. The entry fee moves between two personal bank accounts, and someone scrolls a banking app at midnight matching names to amounts. The draw is done by hand, and the results are written on a piece of paper that goes home in somebody's bag.
None of that is anyone's fault. It is what you get when there has never been a shared system underneath it.
The two things that are actually missing
Strip away the admin and there are only two gaps that matter.
The first is a rating. National rankings count points earned in that country's own calendar. They tell you how someone has performed this year in events they were eligible to enter. They do not tell you how good a player actually is on the day they walk into your hall — and they do not travel. A player who moves between states, or between clubs, or who plays mostly in open local events, has no portable measure of their own standard at all.
The second is a system that runs the whole event. Not a bracket generator. The whole thing: entries, payment review, the draw, the timetable, the scores, the results, the ratings that come out the other end.
What TTRA is
TTRA is a rating system and a tournament platform, built together so that neither has to guess what the other is doing.
- A rating that follows the playerA new player starts from the highest level they have played — 1,000 for recreational players, up to 1,650 for a national player. Every verified result then moves that number by how strong the opponent was, not by how many events you entered.
- Draws that are actually seededEntries are ordered by rating and placed with a snake pattern, and the placement works to keep clubmates and schoolmates apart.
- Scores typed the way the umpire wrote themOne box per set per player, checked against the rule that a set is won 11–9 or better, or by exactly two from 10–10.
- Events checked before players see themAn event reaches the player app only after a TTRA Admin has approved the plan — categories, ages, prices and rules — and the organiser has opened entries.
One number, wherever you play
Your TTRA rating starts from the highest level you have played: 1,000 recreational, 1,100 school, 1,200 district, 1,400 state and 1,650 national. When you beat someone, the points you take from them depend on how much stronger or weaker they were than you — beating a player rated 100 points above you is worth far more than beating a player rated 100 below you.
The system also pays attention to how much of a sample it has. Your first ten matches move your rating a long way, because nobody knows yet where you belong. Matches eleven to thirty move it half as much. After thirty matches your rating is treated as a real measurement and moves more slowly, in proportion to the quality of your results rather than the volume of them.
There is one deliberate exception: play nothing for 180 days and your first category back moves your rating faster, so coming back from a long absence recalibrates you quickly instead of leaving you stranded at a number from two years ago.
That is the whole idea. Your rating is a statement about who you can beat right now, and it means the same thing whether you earned it in Penang, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.
What organisers get
The admin is where a club's evening disappears, so most of TTRA's work is there.
- Set the event up onceCategories and age bands, a price per category, how many competition tables and how many warm-up tables you have, and a buffer between matches — the inputs a real timetable needs.
- Take entries two waysPlayers register in the app, or you send them your own Google Form and import the responses. Either way every entry lands in one queue.
- Say yes to a fee oncePayment moves from the player straight to your account. TTRA never holds the money and never confirms it — you decide when a fee has arrived.
- Work the draw, not the spreadsheetGenerate seeded groups with one press, see how many clubmates are still grouped together, then confirm and open the knockout.
- Hand the umpire a real cardPrintable A4 scorecards, four to a sheet, with the players, the stage and empty boxes for each set.
Payments, plainly
TTRA does not take payment and does not hold funds. Every entry fee is paid directly from the player to the organiser's own bank account using the details the organiser entered for that event. The player uploads a proof of payment, and the organiser marks the fee as received. The money never passes through TTRA.
That is a deliberate choice. It keeps TTRA out of the middle of a transaction it has no business being in, and it means organisers keep using the bank account they already trust.
What you can do today
Organisers can create a profile, set up an event, submit it for review, and open entries once it is approved. Players can create a free profile, look up their rating, find sanctioned events and enter them.
If you run events, set up your 2026 calendar on TTRA and send your players the entry link once entries open. Your first event can be as small as one category on four tables — the system does not care about the size of the room.
If you play, create your TTRA profile. It is free, it takes a minute, and it is what makes your first result count for something you can carry to the next club.
Start with one event
Set up a TTRA profile, or create an event and submit it for review.