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October 9, 2025 | Paul Stimpson

The worldâ€s best under-12 players will arrive in Sheffield over the weekend ready for the prestigious ITTF World Hopes Week & Challenge.

England was chosen as host nation of one of the foremost youth development events in global table tennis, and will welcome players from five continents to the Elite Training Centre in Sheffield from 13-29 October.

The World Hopes Week & Challenge is the pinnacle of a journey, following National and Continental Hopes events. Players who reach Sheffield have already demonstrated exceptional promise and earned their place through rigorous international qualification.

Among the 20 boys and 20 girls, born in 2013 or later, who are attending are Englandâ€s Dimitar Dimitrov, as well as Jayden Xuan Chen and Amber Lemmon, the latter two having won boys; and girls†competitions in England Hopes Week to book their places.

List of players

Boys:Joseph Sebatindira (UGA), Joshua Samson (NGR), Chirag Pradhan (USA), Jacob Kordus (USA), Daniel Liang (Can), Yasin Shoaritehrani (IRI), Anders Zhen Hong Goh (MAS), Krish Vinodh (IND), Filip Arosell (SWD), Reah Krol Shahar (ISR), Nicolai Bucur (MDA), Lucas Alexandre (NZL), Jayden Xuan Chen (ENG); wildcards: Pietro Campagna (ITA), Oscar Pan (AUS), Umar Ayoola (NGR), Leo Sayegh (PYF), Dimitar Dimitrov (ENG), Valentino Marcial (ARG), Pitiyage Silva (SRI)

Girls:Patience Anyango (UGA), Malak Zaki (EGY), Olivia Wang (CAN), Osmari de la Caridad Rosquete (CUB), Karina Xiao (USA), Kaede Neya (JPN), Zhi Yu Eng (MAS), Xintian Gu (SGP), Bianca Toma (ROU), Teodora Sardeni (ROU), Lara Monteiro (POR), Ariel Li (AUS), Amber Lemmon (ENG); wildcards: Adriana Ivan (ROU), Alissa Yeung (AUS), Andreea Prohorovici (MDA), Emma Yang (USA), Serena Rossati (ITA), Karen Looi (NZL), Chanuki Karawayasam (SRI)

They will take part in a week of intensive training and international collaboration, culminating in the Challenge competition on the final two days.

With around 40 coaches also in attendance, plus sparring partners, it promises to be a busy and fulfilling week for all involved.

England performance coaches Charlotte Carey, Antony Constantinou and Ben Barlow will be playing their part in the week and the coach development team will also be on-site to learn from some of the best coaches of young talent.

Coaches from the wider talent network have also been invited to experience the week and use it for their own development – they are Paul Johnson, Olly Tyndall and Eva Toth.

 Sparrers helping out for the week at various points include: Zac Greenhough, Peadar Sheridan, Olly Cornish, Rebecca Savage, Jake Davidson, Rebecca Savage and Rachel Iles.

Activity is not just confined to the training hall – on Tuesday, our S&C partners Sheffield Hallam University are delivering a workshop to the incoming coaches from around the world on the physical determinants of success of the youth table tennis athlete– a co-produced workshop for coaches to share experiences, insights and philosophies around the physical preparation of table tennis players.

And on Friday 17th, the ITTF are delivering a workshop on food sustainability to the players, centred around how to avoid food waste.

Emma Vickers, Head of Pathway Development at Table Tennis England, said: “With World Hopes Week due to start in only a few days, we feel we have made all the necessary preparations and are looking forward to the week starting.

“We have personally invited several coaches and sparrers to support us across the week, and we hope they are able to gain a valuable learning experience from their time in Sheffield.â€

Look out for updates throughout the week on our channels.

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Hulk Hogan passed away, but his memory will live on forever. His restaurant, Hoganâ€s Hangout in Clearwater, Florida, is also still going strong.

You never know who will show up at Hoganâ€s Hangout. The Hulkster was spotted there all the time before his passing. Now, another heavy-hitter from an entirely different world is set to make an appearance there.

Hoganâ€s Hangout posted to promote a major announcement coming to their place. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will be present, where he has something big to day.

“Big news coming to Hoganâ€s Hangout! Governor Ron DeSantis will be here TOMORROW at 10:15 AM with a special announcement… and you never know who else may show up Join us in person at Hoganâ€s Hangout to hear it first!â€

Hulk Hogan became a political figure in the last year or so of his life. He spoke about his support of Donald Trump, and he also had a famously rousing speech at the Republican National Convention.

We will have to see what Ron DeSantis is going to Hoganâ€s Hangout to announce. He has a lot of connections to pro wrestling, if only because he allowed WWE and AEW to produce their programming during the pandemic in his state, as he deemed their work an essential service.

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If there’s a single moment that epitomized the R-rated heckling from U.S. fans at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black last week, it came early Saturday morning by the first tee, where comedian and podcaster Heather McMahan was playing the role of host and party-starter. Among her duties were engaging with fans in the hulking grandstand behind the 1st tee and 18th green, leading cheers — or trying to — and, as she put it, generally “getting everybody hyped.”

In the lead-up to the first foursomes match that morning, McMahan’s cheerleading included encouragement for Bryson DeChambeau, who was readying to take the tee with his partner, Scottie Scheffler, in their match against Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood.

“DEE-SHAM-BOW!” McMahan began hollering through her mic. “DEE-SHAM-BOW!”

The crowd joined in: “DEE-SHAM-BOW! DEE-SHAM-BOW!”

After several refrains, a cluster of fans drowned out the DeChambeau chant with one of their own: “F— YOU, RORY! F— YOU, RORY!”

McMahan hadn’t started the taunting, but she did participate, barking once into her mic: “F— YOU, RORY!”

As video of the moment began making the rounds on social media, it was a tough look both for McMahan and the event’s organizers, the PGA of America, which had little choice but to relieve McMahan of her duties. On Saturday night, the association issued a 26-word statement: “Heather McMahan has extended an apology to Rory Mcllroy and Ryder Cup Europe and has stepped down from hosting the first tee of the Ryder Cup.”

McMahan herself made no public comments about the incident. That changed Wednesday afternoon when, on the latest episode of her “Absolutely Not” podcast, she detailed her account of what went down.

McMahon said the first-tee energy on Friday — the first day of the matches — was relatively tame as she and her team were still calibrating the mics and generally feeling out how best to work the crowds.

“And then Saturday came,” she said. “The word I got from the team was we need to get everybody hyped. Team America is coming out. We need to be so out of control, so full throttle in cheers and chants and get everybody to truly pump up the team and get the energy going.”

As fans started filing in just after 5 a.m., McMahon said she started doing “crowd work” — “Where are you from? Massachusetts? OK, you’re from North Carolina. Like, doing that whole thing,” she said. “We got to get the energy up.”

As a stand-up comic, McMahan has experience entertaining big crowds; she has starred in comedy specials on Netflix and Hulu and also had a role in in the 2021 romantic comedy “Love Hard.” But she said her Ryder Cup hosting job laregly didn’t call for those skill sets, which caught her off guard.

“It was frustrating because I thought that the job that I was hired to do was not really what it ended up being in the sense of we were all trying to figure it out together as a team,” she said. “I thought I was definitely gonna be doing more celebrity interviews as the celeb showed up for first tee. I thought at one point I thought it was gonna be on broadcast. That did not happen. And then I was like, OK, so I’m just kind of like a glorified cheerleader.”

Ryder Cup emcee apologizes for heckling Rory McIlroy, won’t return Sunday

By:

Alan Bastable

McMahon tried to lead a couple of chants with U.S. players’ names, but those efforts, she said, did not go well. ”We’re just getting booed,” she said. “These guys don’t want anything to do with that. … The crowd started to get really fratty, really intense really quick. And I don’t wanna speak for everybody in the crowd. There were so many wonderful people there that were being lovely. But unfortunately, the energy and the way that the crowd moved was just, uh, it was not the vibe.”

And then came her DeChambeau cheer, which devolved into the off-color McIlroy chant, which led to McMahon’s gaffe.

“I made the absolute horrible mistake of saying it back to them once,” she said. “If you watch the video, I’m kind of like laughing to myself. Also, like question mark, like ‘F— you, Rory?’”

She added: “I will take full responsibility and sincerely apologize to Rory Team Europe for saying that. It was so foolish of me. I did not start the chant. I was just like that narrative to get out there.”

After the McIlroy chant, McMahon said she felt a shift in energy from the fans, from “fun and funny” to “kind of toxic,” and that she felt overwhelmed by having to control “4,000 dudes at 5 o’clock in the morning, shouting crazy s—.” She said at that point she told her producer and husband, Jeff Daniels, that it would be best if she stepped back from the proceedings and let the DJ take over. She also said a DP World Tour representative tour approached her and said that leading negative chants against the European players was unacceptable, a sentiment with which she agreed.

She said soon after her misstep, she contacted the DP World Tour to apologize both to McIlroy and the European team. She thought that resolved the incident until she woke up Sunday morning to find a torrent of media coverage of a certain Ryder Cup emcee — some of which, she said, inaccurately described her as having started the chant. “It really got blown out of proportion,” she said. “I just want to clear the air that it would never be my intention to be malicious to be gross to even put that kind of energy out there.”

She added: “You’re telling me that I had so much power over a group of men at a sporting event at 5 o’clock in the morning, when I shut down the chant, as soon as the words came out of my mouth, and I was like, What are we doing here, and laugh? You’re telling me that I have that much power that I then told them to go out for the rest of the day continue to drink till they absolutely were in a stupor and say horrible things to professional athletes. What? That’s where I had to draw the line and be like, hey, that makes no sense to me.”

On Sunday, McMahon said she and her husband were transported to the airport in an official Ryder Cup courtesy vehicle brandished with Ryder Cup logos, the irony of which was not lost on her comic sensibilities.

“Jeff and I had to laugh about that,” McMahon said. “We were like, this is crazy. I mean, listen, I’ve had a lesson in media. I have learned a lesson in communications. I have learned a lesson in moving forward jobs of just being like I need specific parameters. I need to know exactly what is asked of me.”

ATLANTA — The Braves arenâ€t strangers to hosting youth baseball players at Truist Park.

The 44 Classic, in honor of Hank Aaron, serves to spotlight diverse high school baseball talent across the Southeastern United States.

For the first time since its inception in 2019, there were two divisions — 30 high school freshmen and sophomores and 44 juniors and seniors. In years prior, the event featured just juniors and seniors but this yearâ€s event included the freshman and sophomore junior division.

The student-athletes participated in the two-day event that featured a pro-style workout on Saturday and two games on Sunday, both of which took place at Truist Park. There was a Junior Division game (consisting of freshmen and sophomores) followed by a Senior Division game (juniors and seniors).

Braves senior director of alumni relations and growing the game Greg McMichael — who was a relief pitcher for Atlanta from 1993 to 1996 and helped the Braves to their 1995 World Series championship — has been a vital contributor to these special events in recent years.

“Itâ€s been really exciting to see some of these kids,†McMichael said. “This year weâ€ve done it a little bit differently. We brought in the Junior [Division]. They consist mainly of our best RBI [Nikeâ€s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities Program] kids. Theyâ€re the younger kids, freshmen and sophomores. Our scouting group recommended a few players from around the [Southeast]. So we have probably the best talent weâ€ve had since we started this thing. From what Iâ€m hearing there are about six potential Draft picks that [are here].â€

Though he is not a Draft pick as of now, Parkview standout outfielder Malachi Washington is an LSU commit who has played in the 44 Classic the past two years.

“Itâ€s a lot bigger,†Washington said about playing at Truist Park. “Itâ€s huge. [Thereâ€s] a lot more grass to cover. It feels like [being a] pro almost. It feels like being in the big leagues. When you stand in right field you feel like Ronald Acuña. In center field you feel like Michael Harris. Itâ€s really cool seeing the backdrop knowing youâ€re on an MLB field. Itâ€s amazing.â€

There were multiple MLB alumni coaches involved in the 44 Classic. Gerald Perry, Terry Harper and Jerome Walton were on-site coaching in partnership with the Marquis Grissom Baseball Association. Washington and his teammates were given the opportunity to learn from former MLB players.

“Getting experience from veteran guys who have played in the league and who know so much about the game, you can always learn more,†Washington said. “Itâ€s great to get out here and just learn, every day, something new about baseball.â€

The Metro Atlanta area was well-represented throughout the event and Washington was one of five Parkview players who participated this weekend.

“[There are] a lot of guys from my high school,†Washington said. “Joseph Mendez, CJ Woolcock. Ellis Appling, Emani Ford, all those guys go to my high school. Santos Wade [who is home schooled], just a bunch of great guys and a bunch of good names. It just makes us closer. Itâ€s sick, all of us getting invited to such a prestigious and awesome event. It means a lot.â€

Current Braves first baseman Matt Olson and former outfielder Jeff Francoeur are Parkview graduates.

“It means the world, having Matt Olson being talked about every day at our high school [and] Jeff Francoeur, names like that,†Washington said. “Itâ€s really surreal getting to play on the same field they get to play on and hit home runs on. I was fortunate enough to be here for the whole [2025] All-Star Weekend. I got invited to the [MLB High School] Home Run Derby. I have played here a couple of times.â€

“It started with Hank,†McMichael said. “Weâ€re trying to continue his dream of seeing a lot of opportunity and access for kids who are in Atlanta and the Southeast who are able to play this game at a high level. Itâ€s not just about playing the game, itâ€s about being in the game. Thereâ€s plenty of opportunities to be in the game of baseball. There are multiple who have come through The RBI program who are now working for us. Weâ€re really excited about that.â€

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This week’s 2025 Walmart NW Arkansas Championship has been overwhelmed with rainstorms. After inches of rain fell overnight Saturday into Sunday, the LPGA Tour made the “difficult” decision to cancel the remainder of the tournament.

What was intended to be 54-hole event started running into trouble with the weather on Saturday. The start of the second round was delayed, then halted multiple times due to dangerous weather.

At 4:39 p.m. ET on Saturday, the second round was officially suspended for the remainder of the day after the golf course became “unplayable.”

‘I’ve come a long way’: Alison Lee eyes first LPGA win months after birth of son

By:

Kevin Cunningham

But the weather did not take a turn for the better. According to the LPGA, host course Pinnacle Country Club was hit with another 3.25-inches of rain overnight Saturday.

With more rain on the way Sunday and Monday, the LPGA officially announced that the tournament had been cancelled just before 10 a.m. ET on Sunday morning.

“After having assessed the golf course and consulted with our meteorologist and superintendent, the golf course is unplayable,” read the LPGA’s statement on X. “Based on the weather forecast for the remainder of today and all-day Monday, it is highly unlikely that 36 holes could be completed to make it an official event. As a result, the decision has been made to cancel the remainder of the tournament, with only player’s 18-hole score counting.”

The statement continued: “Our partners at Walmart and P&G have generously committed to paying out more than what’s required in the event of a tournament cancellation. In addition, they’ve also committed to ensuring every player receives compensation regardless of where they stand on the leaderboard after 18 holes of play.”

LPGA cancellation thwarts Alison Lee’s comeback win hopes

The news was especially unwelcome to one competitor in particular, American veteran Alison Lee.

This week, Lee was playing in only her third pro event — and second LPGA event — since giving birth to her first son, Levi Todd Kidd, in late April, just over four months ago.

Lee detailed the struggles she experienced preparing for her return to pro golf while balancing being a new mom in her pre-tournament press conference on Thursday, which you can read about here.

Incredibly, Lee fired a seven-under 64 in the first round of the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship to tie for the early lead. She was able to get in three holes of her second round before the tournament was cancelled, making a birdie to maintain a share of the lead at eight under.

But with the tournament now cancelled, Lee will have to await another week to attempt her comeback win. Making matters worse, in her long career Lee has yet to capture an LPGA Tour victory.

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