A ‘hothouse’ of training and competition, a chance to learn from some of the best coaches and a key stepping stone on talented young players’ journeys – that is World Hopes Week.

The International Table Tennis Federation’s flagship programme for talented under-12s from all over the world, it is being hosted at EIS Sheffield for the second year in succession.

Players from all over the globe battled through continental qualification to take their places there, along with England’s Isabella Xiao Xu and Sai Prasanna Kumar.

They are midway through five days of training sessions, with a two-day challenge competition to come at the weekend.

Dora Jeler, Head of Operations, High Performance & Education at the International Table Tennis Federation, said: “This is one of our most important development opportunities for both players and coaches.

“They get the opportunity to not only compete, but also to measure themselves against each other and players from the same age group from all over the world.

“So, they get out of it a bit of a competition in a training sense, but also competition in the competition sense.”

National Pathway Coach Antony Constantinou believes World Hopes Week is a great learning experience for the coaches as much as the athletes.

“I think it’s always good to be exposed to big international training camp like this because you get players from all over the world and coaches from all over the world,” he said.

“Not only do you learn a lot, but it also gives you a lot of motivation because you see everyone trying to fight hard to improve and be good. And then sometimes it’s different to the club environment or the normal environment.

“A lot of countries have different styles and different methods of training, so I think it’s good to have that variety and to be able to learn from each other. And there’s a lot of coaches from other countries and from the ITTF that, hopefully, players can learn the lessons from and take things back to their own practice as well.

“We can always learn from each other in terms of table tennis, but also I think it’s good to build friendships and connections, and then you build relationships that aren’t just going to be here this week, but that you can keep moving forward, not just for us as coaches but also for players.”

Nat Green, Head of Pathway (Interim) at Table Tennis England, added: “I think it’s vital for any young players. Obviously these players are all under 12, probably not travelled that much, especially outside their continent. So I think for them to come together for a world event so early in their playing career is really important for them to see what the big world of table tennis looks like.”

The two England players are relishing the chance in front of them.

Sai said: “It’s really high standards, they’re really good. I’m looking forward to the challenge. I want to see how good I am, and I want to see how much I’m improving from this week.

Isabella said: “We did (a) top table (drill) and it was playing against other people that you might not be able to play in England. So, I can see how much I’ve improved and maybe how I perform outside of England, not only in England.”

It’s a great chance not just for the players but for their coaches as well.

New Zealand coach Josh Alexandre said: “The players should be trying to learn off not just the coaches, but also the other players.

“Back in New Zealand, we don’t quite get the variation of opponents, the quality of the opponents. So everything here is new and it’s a different experience for them.

“For me as a coach, I think it’s a good opportunity to learn and gain valuable experience with other like-minded coaches from around the world. I think it’s about trying to pick their brains and take as much away from that as we can.”