Players can pair up with international rivals to form mixed-nation or mixed-region doubles teams during future World Table Tennis Championships in a bid to improve competition and boost growth, the sport's world governing body said Saturday.

Asian powerhouse China has had a stranglehold on the sport, winning 24 of the 28 gold medals at the Olympic Games since table tennis was introduced at the 1988 Games.

Besides the decision to allow the mixed-nation or mixed-region pairs, the basic quota of singles players per country or region will also be reduced from five to three in future world championships, the International Table Tennis Federation said.

In the men's game, Chinese players have won seven of the past eight biennial world championships, while China's women have claimed the last 10 titles. The semifinalists in men's and women's singles at the last world championships in Paris were all Chinese.