Chief Executive’s Update: October 2025

October 8, 2025 | Paul Stimpson

As we continue to drive forward the pledges in Table Tennis United, it has been a busy month on the domestic and international scenes.

The new season is now well under way, with membership up and competitions flourishing; there has been success on the international stage for competitors of all ages; and of course, we are preparing to host WTT Star Contender London!

Here are the latest updates, mapped to the pledges.

Pledge 1 – Table tennis will be a thriving community – a sport for everyone with no barriers to taking part

Since the new membership season launched on 1 August, more than 26,675 members have joined or renewed – overall 7% ahead of last yearâ€s pace and continuing the steady year-on-year growth weâ€ve seen since the pandemic. Itâ€s great to see the strong uptake among women and girls, up 13% year to date, reinforcing our commitment to Levelling the Table. Weâ€ve also seen an 18% increase in under-11 memberships, a vital step in strengthening the pathway and securing the long-term future of the sport.

Competitions

While local leagues are getting back into the swing of things, weâ€re also pushing ahead with our national competition plans, and Iâ€m pleased to report the 2025/26 British Clubs Leagues season is a record-breaker, with new tiers, more teams and more divisions. 374 teams will compete in 40 divisions across every category and for the first time ever, the Senior British Clubs League will feature a sixth tier of competition, with two divisions at that level. A total of 18 divisions this season, up from 16 last season.

Weâ€ve also announced a new format for the Mark Bates Ltd National Championships, which will be an even bigger and better occasion for players and spectators in 2026, with a refreshed format that brings qualifying and the main draw together under one roof.

The Sussex 4* was a great success, with 180+ entrants. This was the third of this new series of events to take place, following Cleveland (May) and Nottingham (June). As anticipated, each one has been larger and more successful than the last, as confidence and familiarity grows, and the ‘series†becomes more established and embedded with the TTE community.

Following Sussex, there are further events in the 25/26 Calendar in Cardiff (Dec), Jersey (Apr), Cleveland (May), Wrexham (May/ June; TBC) and Nottingham (June; TBC). Please see here for details.

Active discussions are ongoing with a number of other organisers about additional 4* events. We welcome all assistance to help identify and establish additional Local Organising Groups at area level to create new capacity and resource. Clearly these new opportunities will only be successful if supported by the TTE players and community.

Workforce

The Coaching team have been developing TTEâ€s new Coach Development Framework. This framework sets out the future learning and development journey for coaches and aligns closely with the upcoming Player Development Framework. We are excited to officially launch this in the new year.

This game-changing framework represents a major step forward in our coach development pathway, introducing new role-based qualifications, innovative coach development programmes, and more than 200 bespoke video resources to support learning and practice.

In the meantime, we are delivering several Level 1 qualifications across the country, which will be mapped directly into the new framework. Alongside this, we continue to offer CPD opportunities for coaches, including in-person Multiball workshops (available via Sport:80), ensuring coaches can continue to grow, share, and connect right now. The coach development team is also designing an exciting CPD timetable for the year ahead, with plenty of opportunities for coaches to come together, learn, and progress.

Weâ€re pushing forward at pace, so please keep an eye out for further updates and opportunities to get involved.

The grassroots workforce is critical to the success of our sport and we continue to grow and develop officials, including tournament organisers and umpires – click here to see the latest courses which are open to anyone interested.

Pledge 2 – Culture change across the pathway that inspires world-class performances and medal success

England squads in action

Just before the Star Contender, we are proud to be hosting ITTF World Hopes Week at the Elite Training Centre in Sheffield (13-19 Oct), a global talent identification event that brings some of the best U12 young players in the world for intensive training and competition, as well as a chance for their coaches to network and learn from each other. The goal is to develop the next generation of table tennis champions and serving as a crucial step in the ITTF’s Hopes Programme for talent discovery. 

Congratulations to Amber Lemmon and Jayden Xuen Chen, who qualified via the England Hopes Week tournament, and to Dimitar Dimitrov, who will also be at World Hopes Week by virtue of his world ranking.

Our Senior England squad will be competing at the European Championships in Croatia in October and we wish them the very best of fortune. The championships, and the corresponding continental tournaments around the world will decide which nations qualify for next yearâ€s World Championships – though, as host nation, England will be there anyway.

Congratulations to the four young athletes – Dimitar Dimitrov, Amber Lemmon, Assil Sarri and Sinan Surensoy – who competed at the European Under-13 Championships in Sweden in September.

And well done also to the 10 athletes who represented England at the Euro Mini Championships at the end of August. Amber, Assil and Sinan were also among them, along with Thomas Ellis, Sai Prasanna Kumar, Hannah Saunders, Rishaan Sawant, Lusio Wen, Cindy Xiao and Bethany Yang. Congratulations to Cindy on her seventh-placed finish.

We have also had the good news that Connor Green and Abraham Sellado have qualified by their rankings to compete at the Europe Youth Top 10, which starts in France on Friday.

Pulling on the England shirt for these prestigious tournaments is an important staging post in the development of young athletes and, on that theme, I am delighted that we have also announced the creation of the GB Youth Academy, in partnership with Grantham College and Charles Read Academy. This will enable promising athletes aged 12-18 to combine their educations with high-class practice and give them a better chance of success on the international stage.

Podium success at all ages

Elsewhere on the international front, Iâ€d like to pass on my personal congratulations to a number of athletes of all ages who have achieved success in recent weeks.

Tin-Tin Ho became European Universities champion, winning the Womenâ€s Doubles alongside her University of Nottingham colleague Jiaqi Meng.

VETTS England players won 36 of the 50 gold and silver medals available at the Veterans Home Nations Championships, this year hosted by England.

Kai Lun Chow won singles bronze at the WTT Youth Contender Otocec in Slovenia, while Rohan Dani went one better with doubles silver alongside Prisha Goel of India at the WTT Youth Contender Batumi in Georgia.

At the time of writing, we have seen good victories for Tom Jarvis and Anna Hursey at the China Smash in Beijing, with Anna through to the last 32. Annaâ€s recent success reflects well on everyone involved in the GB pathway based in Sheffield and her performances are turning heads among other nations, as evidenced by Europe No 1 Bernadette Szocs partnering Anna in the Womenâ€s Doubles at the Star Contender London.

Pledge 3 – Connection across the table tennis community

Major events

No fewer than 11 Olympic medallists and a host of top-20 players will be competing at the Copper Box from 21-26 October. Alongside them are a number of home-grown talents, and at the time of writing we are awaiting news of further wildcard places for our athletes.

Ticket sales are going well – so much so that we were able to open up extra capacity at the arena for the weekend sessions. Tickets remain available but are in limited supply for the later sessions – click here to buy.

Table Tennis England members had the opportunity to buy tickets first and at the best price during an exclusive priority window and I am delighted that significant numbers took advantage of this opportunity cementing the membership value proposition. I look forward to seeing our members there.

Stay tuned for big announcements around the World Team Table Tennis Championships 2026 ticketing – we will of course also communicate with our members by email, so I would recommend opting in to email communications if you have not already done so – you can do this in Sport:80. And make sure you become a member, or renew, in order to have fist options on tickets.

Building our digital capability

We have recently announced a partnership with Cloudathlete to transform our members†experience and launch the sport into a bright digital future. Following a thorough tender process, the Sheffield-based company – which already provides the TT Leagues and TT Clubs platforms for us – was appointed as partner for our membership platform and wider digital services.

Our members and the wider sport will see many benefits of this partnership, which marks a significant step forward on our digital journey, reshaping the way we connect with everyone involved in the sport. Weâ€ll be communicating progress on this in the coming months to enable a smooth transition.

Pledge 4 – A high performing organisation that is not just fit for today but is fit for the future

Partnerships

We have strengthened our ties with British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS), by progressing towards a Memorandum of Understanding which will bring BUCS players under the TTE umbrella for the first time.

Board

Iâ€d like to welcome two Non-Executive Directors, Leanne Oâ€Leary and Paul Bishop, to the Table Tennis England Board. Leanne has an impressive background in sports law, arbitration and mediation, while Paul has had a long executive career in finance. Their appointments strengthen the Board in key skills, experience, knowledge and diversity.

At the Boardâ€s August meeting, Directors took part in Safeguarding Training presented by the Child Protection in Sport Unit and Ann Craft Trust. In addition, as part of our commitment to ongoing board development, the Sports Governance Academy delivered an interactive session on Board Room Dynamics, which encompassed roles, behaviours and culture.

Governance

We continue to work through updates in our Regulations and supporting documentation including the development of a County Handbook to support the committees of our Counties and their ongoing good governance. We will communicate further when they are available on the website.

People

The final stage of our Transgender Policy consultation has concluded, and we now move forward into the analysis stage. We look forward to presenting our findings at the November Board meeting which includes an analysis of our individual and organisation consultation interviews and follows on from the findings of our online survey conducted in July.

Our Culture Working Group have made great progress on our culture, values and behaviours work and an update to all staff is scheduled to take place in October and Board in November. We look forward to sharing progress following our all-staff day in June.

We undertook our annual staff survey this month with a huge response from the team. We look forward to providing insight into the responses to our teams and supporting action plans that will feed into the in-person conversations that will be held before the end of the year.

It has also been another exciting period for recruitment, as weâ€ve welcomed new team members in Finance, Coach Learning & Development and from November in our Table Tennis Development and Engagement teams. I look forward to meeting with our new starters online and in person in the coming weeks.

As we look ahead, there is much to be excited about — from seeing world-class players compete at WTT Star Contender London this month, to the continued progress weâ€re making on and off the table in preparation for hosting the World Team Table Tennis Championships in 2026.

We look forward to seeing many of you in London. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to Table Tennis England to stay up to date with the latest news, event information, and exclusive updates as we continue our journey towards the World Championships and beyond.

Best wishes
Sally Lockyer
Table Tennis England CEO 

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