Called the "Singapore Smash", the event will see the world’s best players compete at the OCBC Arena over the next 14 days with the men’s and women’s singles finals scheduled to be held on March 20.

A total of $2 million (£1.5 million/€1.75 million) is set to be up for grabs, making it the largest prize pool for an officially sanctioned table tennis tournament, with singles champions in line to earn $100,000 (£74,000/€88,000) each.

Grand Smash competitions form the top tier of WTT's pyramid system and have been likened to Grand Slams in tennis.

They had been due to launch in 2021, before being pushed back to this year.

There have been plans to stage four Grand Smash events each year, but the Singapore Smash is the only one scheduled to be held in 2022.

Up to 2,000 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) world ranking points are on offer for Grand Smash winners.

But this has attracted criticism with the German Table Tennis Federation claiming the Grand Smash matches could be viewed as having a higher value than the Olympic Games or World Championships, which provide the same amount of ranking points.

ITTF chief executive Steve Dainton previously described the Grand Smash tournaments as the organisation’s "marquee events", claiming they would "unlock the potential of table tennis" and help grow the sport.

Germany’s world number seven Dmytro Ovtcharov is the only top-10 player not completing at the Singapore Smash.

Chinese pair Fan Zhendong and Sun Yiungsha headline the respective men’s and women’s singles draws as top seeds.

Olympic champions Ma Long and Chen Meng of China are also expected to be in contention for the biggest prize.

Singapore staged the WTT Cup Finals in December last year where Fan and Sun both triumphed after beating Japan’s Tomokazu Harimotoin and China’s Wang Yidi respectively.

A three-day 64-player draw qualifying competition commences from tomorrow until Wednesday (March 9) before the main draw takes place from Friday (March 11) until March 20.