Charlotte Carey denied her Welsh Commonwealth Games teammate Anna Hursey a hat-trick of victories at the Aspire 2Be National Table Tennis Championships in Cardiff as the Welsh No.1 took the women’s singles title for a fifth time and completed her own treble. Carey won her fourth crown in succession by proving too strong for sporting prodigy Hursey after the 12-year-old had already taken the cadets girls title (for under 15s) and U21 title. In the senior final over the weekend event in Cardiff, Carey raced into a 3-0 lead, before Hursey hit-back to win the fourth game, 11-9.

Anna Hursey and Callum Evans celebrated their World Championships call-up by both bagging title hat-tricks at the Bath Grand Prix. The duo have been named along with Charlotte Carey and Josh Stacey to compete at the championships in the Hungarian capital Budapest from 21-28 April.

Wales’ table tennis prodigy Anna Hursey again showed her outstanding potential by winning the women’s singles at the Preston Grand Prix – aged 12. The Cardiff schoolgirl beat No 1 seed Haoyu Liu 3-1 (11-9, 9-11, 11-9, 11-7) in the semi-final.

Wales’ table tennis prodigy Anna Hursey and jockey sensation James Bowen are in the running to be named BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year. The duo are among the 10 nominees for the award as they look to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Ellie Simmonds, Wayne Rooney, Tom Daley, Andy Murray and Phil Foden, the Manchester City footballer who won in 2017.

Anna Hursey has achieved the biggest win of her fledgling career by beating the current world and European No.1 at the Cadet Girls event, part of the European Top 10 event in Portugal. Hursey – seeded at No.9 for the tournament – hammered the champion Elena Zaharia of Romania 4-0 in Vila Real. It came after the Commonwealth Games star had narrowly lost her two previous matches against rivals seeded at No.2 and No.3.

One of Welsh sport’s greatest figures as a player, coach and administrator has passed away. Rob Cole pays tribute to the legendary Betty Gray, who began playing table tennis in the 1930s.  They don’t make them like they used to! All the headlines in Welsh table tennis this year may have been about the 11-year-old wonder kid Anna Hursey, but she could only dream of having a career as long and successful as Betty Gray.

All the headlines in Welsh table tennis this year have been grabbed by the now 12-year-old Anna Hursey for qualifying for the Commonwealth Games, but take a bow Wales No 1 Charlotte Carey for breaking the mould. There may be no doubting the huge potential of Hursey, but Carey has just made history by becoming the first Welsh woman player to reach the top 100 in the world rankings in the current era.

The Commonwealth Games are over and Wales did well. . . very well. . . . better than ever before. But Rob Cole says that when the politicians have taken their bows for the performances of the athletes, they need to deliver and fund a new sports strategy fit for the future. It wasn’t so long ago that the work of Sport Wales – the governing body for Welsh sport – was being trashed by the politicians, ridiculed, and looked set to be ripped up by their new poodle of a chairman. In short, Welsh sport was in turmoil.

Anna Hursey got her table tennis singles campaign off to a flying start with a crushing 4-0 defeat of Uganda’s Halima Nambozo. The 11-year-old Cardiff High School sensation was a picture of calm as she stepped up to demolish her 18-year-old rival 11-5, 11-4, 11-5, 11-4. In only conceding 18 points in the match, she made a statement ahead of her second match in Group 9.

Wales booked their place in the quarter-finals of the women’s table tennis at the Commonwealth Games after a win over Sri Lanka. Charlotte Carey won both her games 3-0 as Wales saw off their opponents 3-1 to finish second in their pool.

Charlotte Carey may be only 21, but the Welsh No.1 will appear to be a veteran to Commonwealth Games table-tennis debutant Anna Hursey. Carey will rack up her third Games appearance when she leads the four-strong Welsh team to the Gold Coast in April. She was 14 when she made her Games debut in 2010, but her record of being the youngest Team Wales member in Manchester will be smashed by Hursey when she travels to Australia at the tender age of 11.