Visakhapatnam, October 20: It was rather an uncommon scenario for one and all, including the protagonist, on the opening day of the 11Even Sports National Ranking (South Zone) Table Tennis Championships at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium here today.
Achanta Sharatrh Kamal, once the top-ranked Indian in the world, played today his first round qualification match against Syed Kalavath Abdul Kader of IA & AD in 19 years! He was a bit anxious and uncomfortable by his own admission.
No doubt, Sharath won the match 11-9, 12-10, 11-7 in group 13. The three-time Olympian has one more group match against Bharat Krishnan of Kerala later today and there is not an iota of doubt that he will top the group to qualify for the men’s singles main draw.
In a free-wheeling chat, the finest player that India has produced said that he had to take this conscientious decision after he has had a word with the top-brass of TTFI. “My main focus is 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast (Australia). Towards that end, I have now moved into India by about 50 percent. I have given myself two years initially and decided to revisit myself after a year before arriving at a final decision on whether to shift completely to India or go back to Germany,” he said.
Sharath admitted the problems of a sudden shift as it will be difficult for him to find playing partners as players will be travelling for the national ranking events. “This gives me little option but this is the best I can think of as I want to be at home, giving time to my family,” he added.
But the ace paddler was quick to point out the perils. “All these years I slogged out, playing day in and day out and my worry now is the home comfort I will get used to. It’s a trial and error method and hope to strike a balance,” said Sharath.
Coming back to the issue of having to play the qualifiers, Sharath felt he had no option. “But I definitely felt uncomfortable because when I saw the list of eight players that have been given direct entry to Stage 2. I was a bit upset because I have no problems about the top guys like Sathiyan, Sanil (Shetty) and Harmeet (Desai). But there are quite a few juniors in that list and when I have to play qualifiers, yes it did hurt me.”
But he was quick to come back to his old self and was honest that he needed to adapt to the Indian conditions if he were to continue playing. “Five years ago, it was easy and there was more or less a similar condition in India as well as in Europe. The main reason was the speed glue and it minimized external conditions. The glue was subsequently banned. Another reason is in Europe, balls with seams are used while in India we use seamless balls and both are approved by ITTF. You need two weeks to acclimatize.”
However, one thing he was certain about. “I want to play it the hard way and come through the process. I know of no short cuts,” was the parting shot from a much fitter Sharath.
