Da Nang launches “One Star” junior table tennis team event for ages 11-15

On the morning of 10 October 2026, in the training hall of the Da Nang Table Tennis Club, coach Nguyen Huu Phuoc taped a ruled sheet of paper to the wall with six team names on it. Three months earlier, that sheet had been blank. Two junior teams from Quang Nam – Da Nang had no place in this year's national junior team championship. So did a team from Thua Thien Hue and two teams from Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh. The question Phuoc put to his coaching staff sounded simple: where do the children who cannot get into the national event actually play?

Three months after that question, Da Nang had a new tournament — the “One Star” junior team event, opening on 10 October with six teams from four localities.

Two tiers of competition and a gap at the base

In 2026, table tennis held a clear grassroots advantage. One table, two bats and a few balls were enough to set up a playing area in an office hall, a school or a communal culture house. The cost was lower than for most other sports, so the number of players was large. Getting from a large pool of players to a competition system dense enough for the 11-to-15 age band was a different journey altogether.

The junior competition system had two tiers. The upper tier was the national junior team championship: the strongest delegations, centralised rounds, long travel, high cost, limited places. The lower tier was the regional junior team competitions: smaller, localised, cheaper, with more flexible formats, suited to places that could not field a full national delegation.

Between those two tiers sat a gap. A junior team wanting year-round team play had only two options: be strong and rich enough to climb to the upper tier, or settle for a handful of friendlies inside the province. Teams in the middle — enough people, enough enthusiasm, but missing either a place or the travel budget — had almost no proper place to play.

Revolutions always begin with a forgotten figure. What was forgotten here was concrete: the number of junior teams without a place at the national championship, and the number of team matches each child actually played in a year.

This year's entry calendar made the gap more obvious still. The deadline for the regional junior team competition was 16 September. The deadline for the younger age band was 28 October. The 10 October event sat neatly between the two — the moment when teams already knew whether they had qualified, and when those who had missed out needed somewhere to play.

A format designed for the players, not the winners

The most striking feature of the event is its regulations. Each team comprises two players and competes in a progressive knockout: a losing team is not eliminated immediately but continues in a later bracket. As a result every team plays at least four matches, including the weakest.

For an event at the lowest grade in the grassroots ranking scale — the “one star” grade — this is a deliberate choice. Between the ages of 11 and 15, the value of a competition day lies not in a medal but in the number of times a child steps to the table in a thinking state: reading spin, choosing placement, being accountable to a team-mate. A team that loses its first match but has three more ahead learns more than a team that wins three and goes home.

The two-player team format also fits the reality of small clubs. Not every locality can assemble five or six players of the same age band to form a national delegation. Two is a workable number: a ward-level club or a secondary-school sports group can put a team together.

Watching junior team matches in central Vietnam in recent years, I have noticed one detail that keeps repeating: the children are confident in singles, but the moment they are paired in a team they hesitate over splitting the court and calling for each other. That experience only comes from playing real team table tennis, often enough.

The six teams came from four localities: Quang Nam – Da Nang, Thua Thien Hue, Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh. For a first-time event, the arrival of out-of-province teams is a notable signal. Data does not lie, but the story behind it is the truth. The reason those teams travelled to Da Nang lay not in ranking value — the event carries no national ranking points — but in the fact that they had no closer option.

On the organising side, the event follows a co-production model: the Da Nang Table Tennis Club initiated it and handled the technical side, while the Quang Nam – Da Nang provincial table tennis federation sanctioned and approved the regulations. Mr Do Minh Chau, a federation representative, said the paperwork was cleared quickly so the opening date could be met. From first proposal to published schedule took only about three months — a notable speed for an event that had to invite out-of-province guests and arrange accommodation for them.

For children like Vo Hoang Nam, 13, of the Da Nang junior team, four matches in a single day was the first time he had played that much.

A good tournament, and an unwelcome signal

The conventional view would stop at congratulations. Two things deserve to be said plainly.

The emergence of a club-originated event is good news for the grassroots game, and at the same time a sign that the lower tier of the official competition system is not carrying enough. When a coach has to open his own tournament so his students have matches to play, demand for junior team play is outrunning the system's capacity to supply it.

The more troubling part lies elsewhere: the event depends on one individual and one club. Phuoc initiated it, Phuoc wrote the regulations, Phuoc invited the guests. Next year, if he is transferred or the club cuts its budget, the event can stop. Great machines do not break overnight; they crack across countless silent seasons. In the other direction, a junior competition system does not grow overnight either — it grows through small events sustained on a regular basis.

How success is judged also needs care. Measured by medals, the “One Star” event has nothing to show. Measured by the number of matches each child plays, and by how many junior teams are still in the sport after the age of 15, that is the right yardstick. A grand stage does not create monuments; it merely exposes a player's real launchpad. That launchpad is built in halls like the one in Da Nang, on an October morning, with a ruled sheet of paper.

What to watch from here

The variable of this tournament lies after 10 October. If those six teams play flat out, if the children go back and tell their classmates they just played four team matches, next year's event will have a seventh and eighth team. If the ruled sheet is blank again next October, the gap at the base of the system remains exactly where it was, and another coach will stand up and ask the same old question.