Sharath Kamal, Ghatak among Olympic TT probables

New Delhi: Ace Indian paddlers Achanta Sharath Kamal and Poulumi Ghatak were today named among 12 probables for the Olympic Qualification Tournament to be held in Hong Kong from 19 tio 22 April. The Table Tennis Federation of India announced the names of the probables based on their performances in the National Ranking tournaments and the recently-concluded Senior Nationals in Lucknow.[caption id=“attachment_203180” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Table tennis player Sharath Kamal Achanta. Reuters “]  [/caption] Newly-crowned national champion Anthony Amalraj, Soumyajit Ghosh, Subhajit Saha, Sanil Shetty and Soumyadeep Roy were also named among six men in the list of probables. Reigning national champion Ghatak, K Shamini, Mouma Das, Ankita Das, Moushmi Paul and Divya Deshpande form the women’s probables. Ghatak won her seventh national title, a first ever by a married woman, in the Nationals in Lucknow. “The senior selection committee met in Lucknow during the Senior Nationals and decided on the names of players for the Olympic qualifiers. Their national and international rankings, performance in recent tournaments, coaches recommendation were taken into account while shortlisting the names,” said TTFI secretary general Dhanraj Choudhary. The list will be further pruned to three each before the qualifiers after judging the players’ performances in the Asian Championships in Macau from 23 February to 1 March and World Team Table Tennis championships in Dortmund, Germany from 25 March to 1 April. “Apart from the Asian and World Championships, a training camp would be organised from 9 to 20 February at SAI Centre, Patiala before leaving for Asian Championships on 21 February. A similar type of training camp will take place in Austria from 3 to 23 March before leaving for Germany on 24 March. The performance of the shortlisted players for the qualifiers will also be judged during these camps while further pruning the list to three each,” a TTFI official said. India’s Olympic hope in the men’s category revolves around 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Sharath Kamal and his long-time teammate Amalraj. The 2010 CWG doubles gold medallist Subhajit Saha can also spring a surprise in the qualifiers. Ghatak, Shamini, member of silver-winning team at the Commonwealth Games, and Ankita are India’s best bet among women. A maximum of two men and two women can represent a country in singles event. PTI