The inaugural ITTF World Youth Championships start in Portugal tomorrow ©ITTF

Germany’s Kay Stumper and Elena Zaharia of Romania are the top seeds for the respective boys’ and girls’ under-19 titles at the inaugural International Table Tennis Federation’s (ITTF) World Youth Championships that is set to start at Vila Nova de Gala in Portugal tomorrow.

Stumper’s main rivals at the Pavilhão Desportivo Municipal de Gaia in an event that has taken over from the ITTF World Junior Championships  are expected to be Darius Movileanu of Romania, Payas Jain of India and Croatia’s Ivor Ban, respectively second, third and fourth seeds.

In the girls’ under-19 seedings, Zaharia is followed by Russia’s Elizabet Abraamian, France’s Camille Lutz and Swastika Ghosh of India.

Felix Lebrun of France tops the boys’ under-15 seedings, followed by Romania’s Iulian Chirita, Yong Izaac Quek of Singapore and David Szantosi of Hungary.

World Table Tennis, the sport's commercial arm, has re-shaped junior competition, with the inaugural World Youth Championships starting in Portugal tomorrow ©WTT
World Table Tennis, the sport's commercial arm, has re-shaped junior competition, with the inaugural World Youth Championships starting in Portugal tomorrow ©WTT

The girls’ under-15 rankings are topped by Hana Goda of Egypt, followed by Annett Kaufmann of Germany, Anna Hursey of Wales and Suhana Saini of India.

Individual events will are due to take place from Saturday to next Wednesday (December 4 to 8), with the Championships getting underway tomorrow  with the two-day team events.

China, whose players dominated the ITTF World Championships that finished in Houston on Monday (November 29), are not taking part due to COVID-19. 

World Table Tennis, set-up by the ITTF in August 2019 with the aim of modernising the commercial business activities of the sport, announced last October that a new youth series would start in 2021, replacing the ITTF World Junior Circuit.