Ranked 41st on the ITTF Table Tennis Youth Ranking, Naranjo defeated Israel’s Uri Almor in straight games 3-0 (11-5, 11-8, 11-8) before fighting back from two games down to beat Croatia’s Leon Benko 3-2 (9-11,7-11, 11-3, 11-6, 11-2) in the qualifying rounds. In his round of 32, the Puerto Rican took down Israeli’s Eitay Shushan 3-0 (11-6, 11-8, 11-4) in…

Amina Lukaaya, Ugandan national women’s champion, has always served as an inspiration. She funded Mimi’s Tables in 2017 to give children in informal settlements the opportunity to develop their talent in sport, breaking the chains of poverty and crime. The grassroots table tennis academy was flourishing and changing the lives of underprivileged children on a daily basis, until Covid-19 struck.…

Earlier than anticipated departures for Puerto Rico’s Angel Naranjo and Belgium’s Louis Laffineur blew the title race wide open, ready for an ambitious outsider to capitalise. Step forward Iulian Chirita! Negotiating his two remaining group fixtures against Portugal’s Francisco Ferreira and Spain’s Francesc Carrera in straight games, Chirita, ranked 22nd on the ITTF Table Tennis Youth Ranking list, then went…

As part of ITTF High Performance & Development expanded Participation Program, Member Associations will be able to take advantage of Stupa Analytics’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) based performance analysis. Member Associations will use Analyse & Rise to monitor and track their players’ training and match performance through data analytics and AI, analyse an athlete’s technical performance, derive trends and patterns, and…