It will mean the world's biggest table tennis competition will consist of continental stages feeding into the finals.

This is with the hope that the event will widen its global footprint and ensure the number of member associations participating increases significantly.

The individual World Championship finals, which occur every odd year, will consist of a knock-out tournament of 128 athletes for men's and women's singles, 64 for men's and women's doubles and 128 for mixed doubles.

The World Team Championships, held every even year, will have finals consisting of 32 men's and 32 women's teams.

The system of how to make the final stage will be decided at next year's Board of Directors meeting, which is due to take place in Hungary's capital Budapest during the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships.

The ITTF intends to engage experts and continental representatives to come up with "robust, professional and fair proposals".

The proposal for the expanded format of the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships was put forward by the ITTF Future Events Working Group.

The Working Group was established in 2016, under facilitation from Deloitte, to review the format of the World Table Tennis Championships.

This was with the view to ensuring the event achieves the ITTF's commercial, promotional and developmental goals, all of which are aligned with the ITTF Strategic Plan.

The approval of the new concept for the future of the World Championships came at the ITTF Board of Directors meeting in Halmstad in Sweden.

The Board of Directors also approved some changes to the eligibility rules with the intention that both ITTF world title events and table tennis at the Olympic Games will have the same criteria.

Furthermore, the 2020 ITTF World Junior Table Tennis Championships were awarded to Guimarães in Portugal after they presented a strong bid to the Board.

Last month, the ITTF announced that TATA Wooden Door will be the official door company of the World Table Tennis Championships from 2018 to 2020.

TATA Wooden Door first entered the partnership with the ITTF for the 2017 World Table Tennis Championships in German city Düsseldorf, where they created a series of videos featuring table tennis stars trying various trick shots around a miniature TATA door.

The extension of the partnership saw the return of this trick shot challenge at the recent World Team Table Tennis Championships in Halmstad.