Global Table Tennis Show Comes Alive at ITTF 2021 World Championships

Global table tennis stars have continued to make their presence felt as the 2021 ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals moves into the quarterfinal stage at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.

With players from all continents qualified, the ITTF has already fulfilled one of the key objectives of its 2018-2024 Strategic Plan. This is the result of its High Performance and Development (HPD) department’s work to enable talented athletes and coaches to reach their potential through the refinement of talent identification, selection, and development programmes in each continent.

Players from Africa, Europe, North America, South America and Asia are expected to continue lighting up the historical event which is being hosted in the Americas for the first time in its storied history.

While the Asian and European players have not disappointed with their stellar performances, their challenges on the international stage are now continuously being challenged by emerging powerhouses from the rest of the world, making table tennis a genuinely global sport.

African table tennis continues to shine brightly as Quadri Aruna became the first player from the Africa continent to feature in the last eight at the World Table Tennis Championship. “It means a lot to me,” he said, “especially for Nigeria and the whole of Africa. Table tennis is growing very fast in Africa. Now we have several players in the Top 100. ”

American Kanak Jha also proved he could match up to anyone on his day. The 21-year-old American is part of the new generation of up-and-coming stars destined to light up the competition in the table tennis world. He is the first man American player to reach this stage since 1959.