Table Tennis England has been undertaking a review of its entire competition programme. As part of that, the National Championships has changed significantly to an invitation-only event and new categories have been introduced. This change has helped to attract commercial sponsorship and live television coverage.

The English Veterans’ National Championship was not included in this year’s event and has been subject to review. Table Tennis England had considered running a Veterans’ Championships as a stand-alone event in the summer, along similar lines to the Cadet & Junior Nationals.

However, after consulting players, the message was that they would prefer an event which was integrated into or involved with the VETTS (Veterans English Table Tennis Society), who already schedule seven or eight tournaments for O/40s players each year.

Table Tennis England and VETTS have been working together to see if this was possible this season. However, the VETTS had already committed to the venues and dates for this year, and there were difficulties fitting it into their programme this year within the time constraints.

The VETTS National Championships will still take place at Aldersley Leisure Village in Wolverhampton on May 14 and 15 but the event will not now include the previously proposed English Veterans’ National Championships.

Table Tennis England will continue to talk to veteran players and the VETTS with a view to progressing with an English Veterans’ National Championship next year.