SINGAPORE – The Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) officially opened its temporary headquarters at OCBC Arena on Nov 17 with a rousing lion dance performance, and its new home comes with initiatives to ensure roaring success for the sport.
In a bid to increase the pool of young players, STTA president Poh Li San announced the lowering of age for its junior development squad (JDS) selection trials from nine to eight.
The players will be scouted from zone training centres (ZTC) in 2023, and also winners from age-group competitions such as the Crocodile Cup from 2024.
She said: “To continue building up a strong pipeline of talented local players, we need to spot, train and expose our junior talents at an even younger age.
“We will induct talented eight-year-olds into our junior development squad and devote more coaching resources to build a solid foundation for the young players.”
There are about 90 kids in the JDS. With the change, the number is expected to be closer to 100. The STTA will also employ more coaches and sparring partners.
STTA senior high performance manager Eddy Tay said: “Not only do we want to broaden the base, we want to increase the level of training quality and intensity. As such, we will bring in more sparring partners so that our junior players can practise longer and higher-quality rallies, for example.”
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the JDS has focused more on competitions, but there are plans to reintroduce overseas training stints in June and December.
Singapore table tennis is at a transition phase as it weans off its reliance on imported talents, with SEA Games women’s singles champion Zeng Jian the only China-born player in its ranks.
Meanwhile, several programmes have helped the Republic achieve success at the SEA and Commonwealth Games.
One example is the School Within A School (SWS) programme with Singapore Sports School, where student-athletes get extended training duration twice a day and greater customisation of academic support that are worked around their sporting needs.
An all local-born men’s team claimed a silver and a men’s doubles bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, while 16-year-old Izaac Quek became the nation’s youngest men’s singles champion at the 2023 SEA Games on top of his men’s team and doubles golds.
Teammate Koen Pang was the previous youngest winner in 2019 at 17.
Other local-born national players such as Wong Xin Ru, Goi Rui Xuan and Zhou Jingyi have also impressed sufficiently to be picked up by teams in European leagues.
While there is still a long way to go before they can make an impact on the Asian and world levels, Poh feels that the earlier milestones and the women’s team’s narrow round-of-16 loss to Chinese Taipei at the Hangzhou Asian Games show that their development plans are bearing fruit.
Tay said that they want to engage parents and children, so that more budding players will aspire to become professionals.
He added: “Increasingly, there are more young players who are inspired by the exploits of Izaac and Koen, who like their teammates have come through the JDS and SWS.
“Through early engagement via the JDS, we also hope to raise the entry level standards of the SWS and overall quality of the future national teams.”
The national team, youth training squad, JDS and ZTC players have already started to train at their new facility at OCBC Arena Hall 6. It features a better-furnished gym, a dedicated video analysis room and the capacity to accommodate 24 tables, eight more than at their previous Toa Payoh headquarters.
This will be their interim home for six years before the completion of the Toa Payoh Integrated Development.
The STTA also received a boost at the opening ceremony on Nov 17, with Indonesian billionaire Dr Tahir, who goes by one name, donating $250,000 to its pathway development and high performance sports system.
