World Hopes Week brings 36 young table tennis players to Sheffield

The ITTF World Hopes Week & Challenge is underway in Sheffield with 36 young players from 26 member associations. The federation’s 14 October update confirmed that 18 girls and 18 boys had assembled at the English Institute of Sport after the programme opened on 12 October.

The event combines five days of training with a Challenge competition scheduled for 17–18 October. Eva Jeler and Nuria Castro lead the coaching programme, jointly organised by ITTF Sport Development and Table Tennis England. The under-12 pathway brings players selected through continental programmes together, giving both athletes and their accompanying coaches experience of different opponents, methods and training environments.

England’s Isabella Xiao Xu and Sai Prasanna Kumar are among the participants, alongside players from across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania. Uganda’s Joseph Sebatindira is also in the confirmed field. This is a report on the training stage; the weekend’s competition results and subsequent selections have not yet been decided.