ITTF names 34 young scholarship recipients in centenary year push

Bianca Toma, Dania Mohd and Muhammad Faiz Hizir are among the names to remember as the ITTF put 34 young players on its 2026 With The Future In Mind scholarship list, with one more place still pending confirmation. The class stretches across five continents and lands at a telling moment for the federation, which is using its centenary year to link the sport’s past to the next wave of talent.

ITTF marked 2026 as 100 years since the federation was founded and the first World Table Tennis Championships were staged in London in 1926. That history gives the scholarship announcement extra weight, but the programme is built for practical development, not ceremony. It sits inside the ITTF Athletes Development Model, which is built around identification, preparation, qualification and education for promising players.

The backing is meant to do more than put a logo beside a junior’s name. ITTF says the scholarship helps selected athletes attend high-quality training camps and compete at suitable events, while also passing up-to-date know-how to coaches and member associations. The 2026 beneficiaries were born between 2008 and 2014, which shows how early the federation is trying to shape the next generation. That matters in a sport where the gap between talent identification and international results can be long, expensive and unforgiving.

Mikael Andersson, ITTF Sports Development Director, has framed the programme as a commitment to championing young talent, and the strongest case for that model already exists. Hana Goda, a former Hopes Programme athlete and scholarship recipient, became the first African woman to reach the quarter-finals of the ITTF Women’s World Cup. Her 4-3 win over France’s Jia Nan Yuan also made her only the second African player ever to reach the last eight at a Singles World Cup, after Nigeria’s Quadri Aruna in 2014.

That is the benchmark the new class will be judged against. ITTF says the Hopes Programme has served as a talent-identification pathway for more than 15 years and now spans more than 50 countries, giving the scholarship a deeper pipeline than a single annual announcement. The programme has also changed shape over time, with 2023 holders supported through Paris 2024, Youth Athlete Development and Olympic Solidarity Youth Athlete Development streams, while the 2022 class was split between Paris 2024 and Next Generation youth-development categories.

The pattern is clear enough. ITTF is not just funding juniors; it is building a ladder from early identification to elite contention, and the 2026 class is the latest test of whether that ladder keeps producing players who can move from promise to the world stage.