Liam Pitchford and Paul Drinkhall will soon find out whether they have qualified named quota places for Team GB by virtue of their world rankings.

The ITTF rankings will be released in the next few days and the May list is the one which dictates Olympic participation.

The cut-off point above which players will qualify for a place depends on which countries have already qualified players, and how many.

For example, the fact that Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Timo Boll have both already qualified means that no other German players will be eligible for a singles place, regardless of how high they are in the rankings.

If Liam and Paul fall within the cut-off point they will be nominated to the British Olympic Association (BOA) by the British Table Tennis Federation.

The BOA will make an announcement about whether Liam and Paul have been selected to Team GB in mid May.

Both Liam and Paul came within one match of qualifying outright at the recent European Qualifying Tournament in Sweden.

Both players featured at London 2012 but if they make it to Rio it would be the first time they have qualified outright rather than by virtue of home advantage. They would also have made it without the benefit of UK Sport funding.