When the 36 aspiring athletes from all over the planet gather in Sheffield for ITTF World Hopes Week, they will be following in some very illustrious footsteps.
A total of 36 boys and girls from all over the world are attending the week with their coaches, including England’s Sai Prasanna Kumar and Isabella Xiao Xu, who won through the England Hopes Challenge last month.
They will kick off the programme of training and education at EIS Sheffield, the home of the Elite Training Centre, on Monday morning, and the week culminates in a two-day challenge competition on the weekend of 17-18 October.
ITTF World Hopes Week has, for more than 15 years, played a central role in identifying and nurturing the next generation of table tennis champions, creating a pathway for players under 12 – from local discovery to global recognition.
A number of global stars have used World Hopes Week, at least in part, as a launchpad to stellar careers – none more so than Truls Moregard of Sweden.
Moregard attended the programme in 2013 and has gone on to win multiple medals at the biggest competitions in the world, including singles silver at the Paris 2024 Olympics and the 2021 World Championships in Houston.
Currently No 5 in the world rankings, he has been as high as No 2 and is currently competing at the China Smash, where he has reached the last 16.
Among the other World Hopes Week ‘alumni’ to be competing in Beijing are Kanak Jha of the USA, currently ranked No 24 in the world, who was on the programme in 2011 and 2012.
Australia’s Nicholas Lum (WR 51) and Iulian Chirita of Romania (WR 73) are also at the Smash.
Chirita attended in 2018, when Wales’ Anna Hursey was also part of the week. Together, they have combined to win World Youth Championships silver, European Under-21 Championships gold and European Youth Championships silver in Mixed Doubles.
Hursey is not the only female graduate of World Hopes Week to be competing at the China Smash – also in the draw were Adriana Diaz of Puerto Rico (2012 and 2013), and Egypt’s Hana Goda, who won the WHW title in 2019.
Diaz is currently ranked No 20 in the world, with Goda not far behind at 22. Both have won their respective continental championships women’s singles gold medals.
Will anyone emerge from WHW Sheffield 2026 to match or surpass these achievements? Time will tell . . .
