Impressively a total of 30 players and nine coaches attended, the national associations represented being the Australia, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Thailand and the United States.

Players and coaches were organised into groups, given the task of  analysing the recent men’s singles and women’s singles finals at the recent Liebherr 2019 World Championships; interesting and well thought out conclusions was the outcome.

Later, the host nation’s leading female player, Suthasini Sawettabut, shared her experiences of on the subject of dealing with success and failure; her coach, Mr Kirwan explained the importance of meditation in order to control emotions. Notably in addition, Slovakia’s Thomas Keinath, vastly experienced, attended in the role of practice partner.

“The training camp went smoothly and well. Everything was well-planned by the organiser. We had a great co-operation amongst the coaches and a good atmosphere amongst the players. Everyone worked hard, whilst still enjoying themselves, exactly as I expected”. Massimo Costantini

Undoubtedly a motivated group, all with aspects of the play that needed specific attention but most importantly in an age group where learning is comparatively quick and changes can be realised rather more efficiently than when in more senior years.

“We need to be more insistent on the intensity of the work by finding a way to be more consistent in keeping the ball in play, but with high quality. A common mistake that can be observed not only in participants of the camp but also in table tennis players around the world is the lack of playing with quality and consistency. When the quality drops, eventually the game turns into a defensive one. The reasons why so many players find themselves in these situations are manifold: the quality of their daily training, their training environment, surrounding social conditions and many more. Our job is to persist in exploiting one’s abilities to the highest degree in order to succeed in one’s career.“ Massimo Costantini

The training camp concluded with a full day of matches.

“My thanks to the Table Tennis Association of Thailand for the great co-operation and support in organising this camp; it far exceeded our expectations. In conclusion, it was an experience to be repeated.” Massimo Costantini

Reaction

Ruichao Chen (United States)

Darko Arapovic (Croatia)

Laoura Nikolae (Greece)

György Szily (Hungary)

Ashley Robinson (Australia)

Yanapong Panagitgun (Thailand)

Later Yanapong Panagitgun won the junior boys’ singles title at the SET 2019 Thailand Junior and Cadet Open