North West and South East dominate inaugural U11 and U13 Pathway Cup

North West and South East turned the inaugural U11 and U13 Pathway Development Cup into a regional power statement at Highfield TTC in Wellingborough, with North West claiming both Under-13 titles and South East sweeping the Under-11 boys’ and girls’ events.

The sharpest finish came in the Under-13 girls’ competition, where Yi Ching Yu held off Mindy Gao 12-10 in the decider to deliver North West the title. That scoreline captured the tone of the event: close, competitive and built around pressure situations rather than one-off individual matches. In this format, every tie mattered. Matches were played best of three games, all five matches in each fixture counted, and each victory was worth one point toward the final table.

North West’s Under-13 girls’ win was backed up by a strong team finish across the standings. North West topped the table with 19 points, one clear of North East on 18, while South East finished third on 13. London followed on 12, East Midlands on 9 and South West on 4. In the Under-13 boys’ competition, North West again finished on 19 points, seven ahead of East Midlands, underlining how firmly the region set the pace in the oldest age group on show.

South East answered at Under-11 level with a clean sweep of its own, taking both the boys’ and girls’ events. For Table Tennis England, that spread of winners across two age bands was exactly the point of the new competition. The Pathway Development Cup was created as a targeted team event for age groups where club or county critical mass does not exist, giving each Pathway Development Centre a boys’ team and a girls’ team in each age group and a proper national-style test.

The tournament also sat inside a wider pathway reset for 2025/26. Table Tennis England says the Pathway Development Centres are a critical first step in a player’s journey, bridging entry into the pathway and England national programmes. The network now runs through seven centres across the country, with a tighter focus on U13s and the 8-11 age band, plus a push to improve girls’ retention and feed the England Futures Programme. For North West and South East, the first edition of the Pathway Cup was more than a trophy chase. It was an early sign that the next layer of England’s junior structure is already taking shape.