Baraty’s batting for glory at World Champs

Eli Baraty, one of the top Jewish table tennis players in the UK will be competing at this weekend’s World Ping Pong Championships.

Sixty-four of the world’s best players will be taking part in the annual tournament, held at

Alexandra Palace, where a Baraty will be amongst those fighting it out for a share of the £660,000 prize money.

A sport in its own right, with its own governing body, ping pong has a slightly different scoring system from conventional table tennis, though these championships are unique in that the players can only use a hard bat.

Hoping to improve on his previous result of two years ago where he lost in the final qualifying round to reach the group stage, Eli has this season risen in the English Open Ping Pong rankings from 38 to No. 1, having won two of this year’s pre-championship qualification stages which earned him a place at these finals.

He has trained with the ping pong world number 3,7 and 10, and will be training with the current three times world ping pong champion Maxim Shmyrev in the build-up to the weekend.

You can watch Eli live on Sky Sports this weekend, or buy tickets at: http//www.worldchampionshipofpingpong.net