Abhinandh stars in Ultimate Table Tennis
Eighteen-year-old P.B. Abhinandh was named Player of the League at the conclusion of Ultimate Table Tennis Season 7, after a breakthrough tournament for Dempo Goa Challengers. Playing in Panaji, the teenager defeated defending champion U Mumba's Lilian Bardet in the league opener, upset India's highly rated Ankur Bhattacharjee and pushed World No. 35 Omar Assar of Egypt before his unbeaten run ended. Dempo Goa Challengers reached the final, where Abhinandh again beat Bardet in the opening match, though U Mumba rallied to retain the title. Currently ranked World No. 13 in the Under-19 category, Abhinandh has played only three senior WTT events this year and is expected to add more as he transitions from the youth ranks.
India advances at Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships
A day after the team events, the individual competitions at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships produced a strong showing for India. Eleven of fourteen Indians cleared the round of 32 in men's and women's singles, with Manush Shah and Harmeet Desai setting the pace. Manush dropped the opening game to Australia's Chulong Nie before reeling off four straight games, while Harmeet recovered from an early loss to Australia's Xuqi Lin by taking four in a row. World No. 38 Manav Thakkar, Sanil Shetty, Jas Modi, Payas Jain and Akash Pal also advanced comfortably, with Ronit Bhanja needing a 15-13 decider against Singapore's Ellsworth Le. In the women's draw, Commonwealth Games medallist Sreeja Akula was stretched to seven games by Australia's Jiamuwa Wu before going through, and Swastika Ghosh, Anusha Kutumbale, Syndrela Das, Taneesha Kotecha, Nithya Shree Mani, Sayali Wani, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Divyanshi Bhowmick and Yashaswini Ghorpade joined her. Multiple Indian pairs also progressed in men's, women's and mixed doubles, keeping medal hopes alive across three categories.
Saleh warns of shifting African balance
Egyptian table tennis veteran and current national junior team head coach Ahmed Saleh has predicted the end of long-standing Egyptian and Nigerian dominance on the continent. Speaking after the 2026 ITTF Africa Youth Championships in Accra, Ghana, Saleh highlighted the rise of Uganda, South Africa, Algeria, Tunisia and Togo, singling out Uganda's defensive game as particularly difficult to neutralise. Gold medals in Accra were shared among five countries — Egypt, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria and Uganda — a distribution Saleh contrasted with the historical monopoly held by the two traditional powers. He projected that within two years, no African team could be certain of winning any given event and said the trend pointed to more African players competing at the top of the global game.
Outlook
The next verifiable milestones are the CTTC pre-quarterfinals and round of 16 in the men's and women's singles, alongside further rounds of UTT Season 7 and Abhinandh's expected schedule of senior WTT events. On the African side, the Accra youth results will feed into junior-team planning under Saleh, with the coach's two-year timeline offering a rough benchmark for how quickly the continental hierarchy may realign.
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