Team Hopes mentor tells of challenges
Team Hopes will be out to give their best performance in the 2017 Table Tennis World Cadet Challenge at the Vodafone Arena, Suva when it kicks today.
Team Hopes mentor Dejan Papic said yesterday it has been a great experience for the team to travel to Fiji and be part of this challenge.
“Well, despite the long flight travelling here it feels good to come to Fiji and the people are so friendly especially in terms of their hospitality,” Papic said.
“I believe Team Hopes have the youngest players in the side where most of them are between the ages of eleven and twelve years. We’ve eight members in the team with seven coaches’ in total to assist with the training and the players are confident to deliver their best.
“The way we select these players is basically to keep in mind that they belong to different countries and in the future we hope to expand our intake. However, next year we want to have more strict standards of selecting new players for the team. We had faced a few challenges especially when having a young team it becomes quite difficult to organise things such as conducting trainings and less time for sleeps.”
Papic said they also face difficulties with language as all players don’t speak English.
“It’s not their first language so it is quite difficult for us. I guess these challenges are also positive in a way that will allow these players to mature and become responsible adults.”