Olympic table tennis consists of four events: men's singles, women's singles, men's team and women's team.

Singles matches are best-of-seven games. Team matches consist of four singles matches and one doubles match, each played over the best-of-five games.

Play is continuous throughout a match, except for a one-minute break between each game. 

Each game is played to 11 points, with a 'win by two' format. So, for example, if there is a 10-10 tie, the game is won by the first player/team to score two points more than the opposition. In the last possible game of a match, the players/teams change ends when either player/team has scored five points.

The first player or team to win the majority of games in a table tennis match is declared the winner. In singles, a player must win four out of seven games to be declared the winner. In team matches, a team must win three out of five games to be declared the winner. 

Players advance through the draw by winning matches. Losers are eliminated until the field is down to four players/teams. At this stage, the semifinal winners advance to meet in the gold-medal final; the semifinal losers face each other to determine who wins bronze.

In Paris, all men's and women's singles events will be contested as single-elimination tournaments. 

How does the draw work for singles matches?

Each table tennis singles draw was meant to feature 64 entries, with no more than two per nation. The single-elimination tournament will feature best-of-seven matches. 

The format for teams is similar to singles, except 32 teams (16 men's and 16 women's) are involved as opposed to 64 individual players in the singles tournaments. Team contests are best-of-five matches. No player will play more than two matches in each contest.

The contest, a best-of-five match, will start with two singles matches.

The third match will be doubles and must include the player who has not been selected in either of the preceding singles matches.

Following the doubles, there will be two further singles matches, if necessary.

Team captains may select the order in which the players (labeled A-B-C and X-Y-Z in the contest format) appear and they must initially nominate which two players will compete in the first two singles matches.

Following those matches, the team captain can then decide who plays doubles with the player who has not participated in the first two singles. From there, there is a formula to determine the final two matches, if necessary. A coin toss is used at the beginning of the match to give the captains a choice in picking which set of three players they wish to be. The system avoids any repetition of matches; no players can face each other on two occasions in singles matches in one particular contest.