The contract, signed between ITTF and JTTA during the recent 2021 Arab Table Tennis Championships in Amman, sets the stage for the 2021 World Hopes Week & Challenge. After Qatar in 2016 and Oman in 2019, it will be the third time the World Hopes train and compete in the West Asia region. As such, after no on-site opportunity for the ITTF Hopes to measure themselves against their peers from other continents, this announcement will certainly be fantastic news to those yearning to showcase their talent and aspiring to new heights in their table tennis career.

The ITTF Hopes program is a well-established global talent identification pathway, which has served as a springboard to many of today’s world-class players, having shown their high potential and skills on the Hopes road and now treading the boards of major competitions globally.

Besides the established continental qualification pathway, this year saw the introduction of a digital component to the Hopes road with the Hopes Around The Clock, a regular fortnightly remote training session for the continental Hopes, which, alongside the continental onsite activities, will play a role in the selection of the 20 girls and 20 boys traveling to Jordan.