Table Tennis India aims for medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics

Indian players are laser-focused on the Paris Olympics 2024, where 60 countries are participating in the Table Tennis sport. This time, they will not go to the athletes village to enjoy and meet famous sports stars. Their goal is to bag nothing less than medals.

This is probably the first Olympics when this aim is realistic. We have the experienced Sharath Kamal again along with India's star player, Manika Batra. But this time, we also have Sreeja Akula who has improved by leaps and bounds in the past few years and is now ranked in the elite groups.

India's team medal prospects provide some hope as the teams have players of good strength and experience.

Massimo Costantini is also sensing the ambitious mood of the Indian Table tennis team. A unique fact this time is that there are a few personal coaches, which indicates that the sport has become highly professional and lucrative at the top level.

India Table Tennis team composition:

Men’s team: Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, and Manav Thakkar; 

Reserve player: G. Sathiyan

Men’s singles: Sharath Kamal and Harmeet Desai

Women’s team: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, and Archana Kamath; 

Reserve player: Ayhika Mukherjee

Women’s singles: Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula

Harmeet Desai and Sutirtha Mukherjee are National Champions!

Harmeet and Sutirtha won the National Table tennis Championships titles yesterday. While the strong Sutirtha beat Kritwikka in straight sets in the finals, Harmeet overcame teammate Manav Thakkar in a close encounter.

Super stars Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan were upset by Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet respectively.

Photo: Kesavan for The Hindu

Many Indian group matches at the Australian Open Table tennis tournament today

Harmeet Desai will start his match at 6 PM (Geelong time) at the Seamaster 2018 ITTF World Tour Platinum Australian Open at Geelong. Sathiyan and Sharath will play their matches next followed by Manav a little later in the day. Sanil and Amalraj have already played their first matches yesterday. Sharath and Sathiyan have relatively easy opposition while Manav faces the formidable Maharu Yoshimura.

In the Women's singles, India's star player Manika Batra plays her match tomorrow. In a bizzare pairing, Sutirtha Mukherjee will face off against Ayhika Mukherjee in a group match. Bizzare because they've traveled thousands of kilometers to play at the Australian open from their home where they live just some kilometers apart! Pooja Sahasrabuddhe Koparkar won her tough group match earlier.

Photo courtesy of the ITTF. Only for representational purposes.

India Table Tennis players' world ranking

The following are the Indian Table Tennis players rankings on the basis of World rankings in November 2017:

Top India Men World Rankings

45 ACHANTA Sharath Kamal
88 GNANASEKARAN Sathiyan
91 DESAI Harmeet
94 GHOSH Soumyajit
135 ANTHONY Amalraj

The superstar Achanta Sharath Kamal is still the top Indian player by world ranking in the Men's section. G Sathiyan is making waves on the ITTF circuit. If he continues at the same pace, he will soon be a seasoned force to reckon with.

Top India Women World Rankings

107 BATRA Manika
139 DAS Mouma
153 MUKHERJEE Ayhika
191 PATKAR Madhurika
219 KAMATH Archana Girish

Manika has been consistent from many years and has even breached the top 100 earlier. We can hope for a lot from Archana Kamath, who is ranked 219 even though she is still a junior! The surprise in this list is Ayhika, who is ranked high due to her exploits earlier.

Photo courtesy of the ITTF.

East Zone National Ranking Table Tennis tournament 2017

The 11Even Sports National Ranking (East Zone) Table Tennis Championships is being held at Siliguri from 23 to 28 October, 2017. Over 700 players are expected to participate. Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan will be missing in action. However, other players such as Soumyajit, Sanil, Harmeet, will fight it out for the crown. In the women's section, almost all the top players will be present, including Manika, Mouma, Poulomi, Pooja, Ankita, and Sutirtha.

Soumyajit continues domination, Ankita overcomes Pooja at Chennai zonals

National champion, Soumyajit Ghosh continued his good run in the domestic scene this year and annexed the South Zone national Table Tennis title by beating his friend, Harmeet Desai. Soumyajit had beaten Harmeet by the same 4-2 score at the Delhi Inter Institutionals.

Earlier, in the semi finals, Soumyajit beat Sathiyan and Harmeet beat Amalraj.

In a thrilling women's final, Ankita Das beat Pooja S 4-3. Ankita had reached the finals by beating Mouma Das while Pooja had beaten veteran Anindita Chakraborty.

Abhishek Yadav and Reeth Rishya won the Youth Boys and Girls titles.

Poulomi, Sathiyan win Inter Institutional Table Tennis Championships

Poulomi Ghatak and G Sathiyan of PSPB won the prestigious Inter Institutional Table Tennis titles. In the finals, they beat Soumyajit Ghosh and Pooja Sahasrabudhe respectively.

The Inter Institutional Championships are the second most prestigious on the India circuit. All the performers here not only get a head start for the season, but also get 50% more points than the Zonals.

Editor
www.TableTennisBug.com

(Photos: TTFI and hindu.com
Results (from TTFI):

Men (Final): G. Sathiyan (PSPB) bt Soumyajit Ghosh (PSPB) 4-2 (11-1, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9, 10-12, 11-9); Semifinals: Soumyajit Ghosh (PSPB) bt Sanil Shetty (PSPB) 4-0 (11-8, 11-6, 11-7, 12-10), G. Sathiyan (PSPB) bt Sarthak Gandhi (FCI) 11-8, 8-11, 11-5, 11-8, 11-7).

Doubles (Final): G. Sathiyan/Sourav Saha (PSPB) bt Soumyajit Ghosh/Harmeet Desai (PSPB) 3-0 (11-7, 11-9, 11-9).

Women (Final): Poulomi Ghatak (PSPB) bt Pooja Sahasrabudhe (PSPB) 4-2 (12-10, 9-11, 11-9, 13-11, 8-11, 11-8); Semifinals: Pooja Sahasrabudhe (PSPB) bt Mousumi Paul (PSPB) 4-2 (11-8, 9-11, 7-11, 11-3, 14-12, 11-6), Poulomi Ghatak (PSPB) bt Madhurika Patkar (RSPB) 4-3 (2-11, 12-10, 11-13, 5-11, 11-3, 11-6, 11-3).

Winners of the Junior and Youth National Championships 2012 at Siliguri

Winners of this year's Youth and Junior National titles:
Junior girls: Reeth Rishya
Junior boys: Abhishek Yadav
Youth girls: Ankita Das
Youth boys: Soumyajit Ghosh

Please note that the photos are from the previous year. Incidentally three out of the four retained their crowns.

Abhishek puts up a brilliant show; Juniors give Chinese a huge scare

Asian Junior Table Tennis, Delhi

Sourav Saha lost to World No.18 after leading 3-0. Harmeet Desai lost close 2-4 to World No.4. Sathiyan lost to world No. 2, 4-3.

In the Cadet Boy's, Abhishek Yadav beat top seed, Lim Jong Hoon and reached the semi-finals. He also qualified for the World Junior circuit finals and the Global Cadet challenge. Congrats to all the players for a brilliant show in the team and singles events.

Sourav, Mouma win North Zone Ranking Table Tennis titles

Sourav Chakravarthy and Mouma Das won the North Zone Ranking Table Tennis tournament held at New Delhi. In the finals, they beat Soumyajit Ghosh and Mamta Prabhu respectively, but in contrasting styles.

While Sourav coasted to a 4-2 win over the relatively inexperienced Soumyajit, Mouma held her nerve and beat back Mamta's challenge 4-3.

Harmeet Desai asserted his growing stature on the domestic scene beating G Sathiyan in the Youth Boy's finals. Pooja Sahasrabudhe beat Divya Deshpande in a daring comeback from 3-1 down.