World Hopes Week & Challenge Underway in Sheffield with 36 Players from 26 Member Associations

The ITTF World Hopes Week & Challenge 2026 is underway at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, where 36 of the world’s most promising young players, 18 girls and 18 boys from 26 Member Associations, have come together for the final stage of the ITTF Hopes pathway.

Jointly organised by Table Tennis England and the ITTF Sport Development, the activity opened on 12 October. Training is in full swing this week, led by ITTF Head Coaches Eva Jeler of Australia and Nuria Castro of Spain, with the Challenge competition to follow on 17 and 18 October.

From national discovery to the world stage

The ITTF Hopes Programme is ITTF’s flagship talent identification programme for players under 12. National Hopes activities allow Member Associations to scout and develop emerging talent, with standout players progressing to their Continental Hopes activities. Those continental stages, held this year across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania, lead to the World Hopes Week & Challenge.

While the week is built around training, the Challenge gives players the chance to put what they have learned into practice in competition. This year it takes the form of a giant round robin, a first for the Hopes Week.

In both the girls’ and boys’ singles, players are split into two groups, with every player facing everyone else in their group. Group matches are played over four games, with a golden point deciding any game that reaches 10-10, and the top four from each group advance to the quarter-finals. The main draw is then played as best of three games, with no golden point, and positions one to eight are played out.

More than results

As in previous years, players are being assessed on far more than match results. Technical ability, training attitude and approach to competition are all taken into account. The highest evaluated players will be selected for the Hopes Team, a fast-track into the High Performance pathway that unlocks scholarship support and additional funded training and competition opportunities.

The players

Girls