In 2015, I was the Central American U11 Champion, which gave me the chance to be in a training camp a week before the Latin American children’s championship in Havana, Cuba; that week there
was a camp and a competition among the 12 top U 11 players in America, in which I came in second place, winning my pass to the hopes world camp in Doha, Qatar.
I attended the training camp with professional coaches from China who helped us to improve a lot in all aspects, the last 2 days there was a competition among the top 16 players in the world; I finish ed
7 th , but by choice of the ITTF coaches I was chosen to be part of the hopes team at the Cadet World Cup to be held in Shanghai, China.
My experience in China helped me to truly get to know th e world of table tennis at only 12 years old. The Hopes team gave us the opportunity to spend 1 month prior to the Cadet World Cup to train together. Every day we trained 3 sessions of 2 hours each. We had coaches from the Chinese team who helped us, the m ulti balls were super exhausting, but the strength and conditioning trainer helped us, we trained with Chinese players of all ages and competed with them (although we lost more than we won, we tried to enjoy every opportunity we had). 5 days before the tournament, all the participating continents arrived and we trained with them, even though all the players were older than us, we made the most out of each game, training session and match, because it was a unique experience that greatly helped us develop.
Lastly, not everything was table tennis, we got to know the centre of Shanghai and other touristic places in the city, my father was able to come with me, and we were fortunate to live my first World Cup experience together. Meeting these great players and coaches would inspire me to continue following this dream for many years to come.
