ITTF-Americas centre opens in Santo Domingo

ITTF-Americas opens a regional training and development centre in Santo Domingo

November 2026: 28 young players from 12 countries join the first camp at the Table Tennis Palace

Table tennis at Club Naco, Santo Domingo — Photo: Ping Pong in Club Naco, Santo Domingo by Caballero1967, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (illustrative, not the new centre)

ITTF-Americas has opened the Americas Table Tennis Training and Development Centre, known by its Spanish initials CETMA, at the Table Tennis Palace in Parque del Este, Santo Domingo.

The centre is already in use. Its first athletes' camp runs from 3 to 24 November, with 28 young players from Colombia, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, and Trinidad and Tobago, and coaches working alongside them.

"Today is a historic day," said ITTF-Americas president Juan Vila at the opening. He described the project as a long-held ambition of the confederation, aimed at narrowing the gap in technical standards between countries in the region.

The project is backed by Panam Sports, the ITTF, the Dominican Ministry of Sports and the Dominican Olympic Committee, along with the German Olympic Committee, according to Dominican newspaper El Nacional. Officials at the launch included Dominican Olympic Committee president Garibaldy Bautista and deputy sports minister Franklyn De la Mota.

The ITTF says the centre is also designed to develop coaches, share knowledge between countries and help identify young talent across the region.

The Americas already have a world-class star in Brazil's Hugo Calderano, and Colombia's Emanuel Otalvaro won the men's singles silver at the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar this month, a first Youth Olympic table tennis medal for his country.