Paddlers' progress

With four Indians in the fray, this might be the country’s best chance at a table tennis medal at the Olympics, especially in mixed doubles

- NEERU BHATIA

After qualifying for the Olym-pics at a tournament in Doha in March, Achanta Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra had been itching to train together. They were in Chennai and Pune, respectively, and Covid kept them there. Eventually, with some doing, she went to Chennai to train with him, and then Kamal went to Pune. The duo also managed a three-day training stint at the national camp in Sonepat, Haryana, in June.

Manika, India’s highest-ranked women’s international (No 63), has been training with her coach, Sanmay Paranjape, and her Belarusian sparring partner, Kiril Barabanov, at the India Khelega academy in the heart of Pune.

“The pandemic has been really tough for everyone,” Manika, 25, told THE WEEK. “I was doing really well before that, but then things just stopped and left us with no tournaments. [But] I learnt work ethic during the lockdown. After the mixed doubles qualifying match in Doha got over, I went to the gym. When I returned to Pune, I began training without any break.”

Meanwhile, Sharath, the world No 32, has to focus not only on the mixed doubles, but also on the men’s singles competition.

Speaking to THE WEEK about his and Manika’s stunning win against world number five Sang-Su Lee and Jihee Jeon of South Korea in the Asian Olympic Qualification Tournament in Doha, Sharath said: “[It] was the most important performance for Indian table tennis. Winning [bronze] at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta was also big. [I could start thinking that] if we can win at the Asian Games, we can do so at the Olympics, too. If I have a fantastic run in Tokyo, I have a small chance of [winning a] medal. But now with mixed doubles, we are actually looking at it.”