Slough’s Sai Prasanna Kumar managed to hold his own against the best young players in the world as he competed at the World Hopes Week event last week.

Sheffield hosted the event, with the Cippenham Table Tennis Club junior having beaten nine of his best-ranked English rivals to qualify from the England Hopes event.

The annual World Hopes Week sees up to 20 of the best 12-year-old players in the world take part in an intensive week of training before facing each other on the table in a two-day competition.

It has proved to be the launchpad for many of the world’s best players, including some Olympic medallists, and Sai will be hoping to follow in their footsteps.

A total of 34 of the world’s best under 12 players – 18 girls and 16 girls – plus their coaches, travelled to Sheffield from all corners of the globe to take part. The event was run by Table Tennis England and the International Table Tennis Federation.

The unique format for the challenge saw all the boys play each other with the matches played over four games, with all results – 4,0, 3-1, 2-2 – all possible and every game won counting towards the final leaderboard.

Sai won 30 of his 68 games and finished in 13th place. His best performance came in a 3-1 victory over Hachim Tifassi Idrissi of France who finished fourth overall. He won the game 10-12, 15-13, 11-5, 14-12.

He also defeated Daniel Casquero of Spain 3-1 (12-10, 11-8, 7-11, 11-8) and beat Gabriel Utrilla Rimalova of Mexico 4-0 (11-4, 11-3, 11-7, 11-6). Sai also enjoyed a 4-0 win over Rabeah Al-Kuwari (Qatar) (11-5, 11-8, 11-9, 11-2) and a 3-1 (6-11, 11-5, 11-7, 11-6) win over Ryan Li (Ireland). He also drew 2-2 with Chothirun Nantachaiwut (Thailand), Juan Echavarria (Colombia), Samin Lora Morales (Peru) and Adam Lashin (Egypt).

Sai, aged 12, said: “I like how the coaches helped me a lot. I learned how to have an aggressive backhand and my forehand’s a lot stronger.

“It's been great because I haven't had this experience before and the players are much better than in England. They teach me different styles.

“The experience is really good, and the coaches are really good.”

The Challenge event was won by Uganda’s Joseph Sebatindira, who lost only six games all tournament and finished with just one more game than New Zealand’s Lucas Alexandre.