Anna Hursey targets knockout stage for Wales at World Team Championships

Anna Hursey is targeting qualification for the main draw at the 2026 World Team Table Tennis Championships finals in London, after Wales women made a strong start to their campaign.

Two 3-0 wins over Nigeria and Uzbekistan mean Wales face similarly unbeaten Australia on Friday to see who will finish top of Group 12.

“It’s been a really good start for us and we have more of a difficult match tomorrow [Friday] against Australia. So yeah, hopefully we can play as well as we did in the last two,” said the 19-year-old.

“For all of us, the goal is to get to the main draw because we think it’s quite possible, so we just have to try and play well and have confidence from the last two matches.”

The Championships sees 64 men’s and 64 women’s teams compete from 28 April – 10 May at two London venues – the OVO Arena in Wembley and the Copper Box Arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London.

The 14 group winners progress to the main draw at the OVO Arena – with the top seven seeds and England already qualified – while the second-placed teams in the groups will compete in a preliminary round to determine the final 10 teams to go through.

The main draw will feature a total of 32 teams in a knockout format.

Hursey, with team-mates Danielle Kelly, Lowri Hurd, Charlotte Carey and Lara Whitton, is hoping their good form will carry them through.

“I’ve had a very good year so I hope just to keep playing well in the next few matches that we have,” Hursey added.