Held in connection with the WTT Youth Contender in Linz, the camp was split by gender, with the girls kicking off action from 25-29 April before continuing to the tournament. The boys’ camp followed from 1-5 May.

Each group faced five intense days of work on and off the table for a total of 7 hours per day.

“For the girls’ camp, drills and exercises were focused on both, improving and applying techniques in view of the upcoming important WTT Youth Contender. The players made remarkable improvements from the time they joined, throughout the training and at the event. The context for the boys was similar but not the same. In fact, the majority of them came from the event so the exercises and the drills were focused exclusively on technique. A large part of the camp was dedicated to basic footwork, something that every player should do daily. But for them was even more important as they are in the growing phase were muscles and coordination skills increase rapidly.” – Massimo Costantini, ITTF High Performance Elite Coach.

The Hopes had prominent visitors inspiring them to work even harder for their goals: former European Champion “Susi” Liu Jia and former World Champion Werner Schlager shared insights and experiences with our Hopes players.

Despite the extreme obstacles placed in their way since the outbreak of war in their home country, Hopes Squad member Sofiia Chumarna, along with coach Oksana Chumarna and Maxsym Tiutiunnik made up the Ukrainian delegation, able to travel to the Hopes Squad training camp from their temporary residence in Poland and supported by ITTF High Performance & Development.

“To conclude, I would like to congratulate the coaches for the excellent work deployed during the activities. They displayed a will to learn and to be indispensable to their players. A special mention goes to our Ukrainian “squadmates”; we were very happy to be able to assist them in attending the camp”, Massimo Costantini.