Road to Paris, Table Tennis: Who has qualified for the Olympics and how did they make it? Can India win a medal?

There are only a handful of sports that India have ever dominated in, and table tennis certainly isn’t one of them. And they would easily be forgiven for not winning tournaments at a global, or even at the continental level for that matter, more often than not.

Few, nations, after all, are able to stand up to China’s might in the sport that was originally invented in Britain as a recreational activity rather than a competitive sport and was introduced into the Olympic fold much later.

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India still have a long way to go as far as catching up with powerhouses China, Japan and South Korea is concerned. However, there has been steady improvement in recent times, and Indian table tennis certainly is on an upwards trajectory.

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India had never won a medal at the Asian Games, where some of the world’s most celebrated table tennis nations compete, till 2014 and would win two of them in Jakarta 2018 in men’s doubles and mixed doubles respectively. And in the Hangzhou Asiad last year, Suthirtha and Ayhika Mukherjee would win the country’s maiden medal in the continental event in the women’s doubles category.

As for the Paris Olympics, the Indian table tennis contingent has gone a step further by qualifying for the team events for the first time since the category was introduced in Beijing 2008.

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India have participated at the table tennis event in every edition of the Olympics since it was introduced in Seoul 1988. Until Athens 2004, India had not advanced beyond the preliminary round. The furthest the Indian paddlers have advanced in the Olympics is the Round of 16.

Who are the Indian paddlers going to Paris?

India will be sending its biggest table tennis team to the Olympics this year with six representatives — three each in the men’s and women’s events, with a reserve or ‘alternate’ player in each category.

The Indians will be taking part in four events — men’s team, women’s team, men’s singles and women’s singles — and have created history by making their maiden appearance in the team events.

Here’s the full table tennis team that will be representing the country at the Paris Games:

Men’s team: Achanta Sharath Kamal, Manav Thakkar, Harmeet Desai. Reserve: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran.

Women’s team: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Archana Kamath. Reserve: Ayhika Mukherjee.

The team was announced by the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) in May, with Sathiyan Gnanasekaran not finding a place in the three-member men’s team as Manav Thakkar and Harmeet Desai were chosen to accompany Achanta Sharath Kamal, who will be making his fifth and final appearance at the Olympics in Paris.

Sharath Kamal, who will be India’s flag-bearer in the opening ceremony on 26 July, qualified as the top-ranked Indian (40th), with Thakkar (62nd) and Desai (63rd) separated by just one slot.

Manika Batra, meanwhile, leads the women’s contingent even if she isn’t the highest-ranked player. Sreeja Akula, who is set to make her maiden appearance in the Olympics later this month, is the highest-ranked Indian paddler sitting at the 25th spot, three places above Batra.

Meanwhile there was plenty of debate over the third female paddler, and the TTFI decided to go ahead with Archana Kamath, who was ranked 103 at the time of the announcement. The decision resulted in Ayhika Mukherjee, who had won a historic women’s doubles bronze along with Sutirtha Mukherjee in the Asian Games last year.

As for India's historic qualification for the table tennis team events in the Paris Olympics, India made the cut in both the men’s and women’s categories as one of the top 16 teams in the world. The women’s team was ranked 13th while the men’s side was placed at the 15th spot.

Is a medal possible?

Realistically speaking, winning an Olympic medal in table tennis is a lot easier said than done as India still have a long way to go before they are able to catch up with the powerhouses of the sport such as China, Japan, Korea, Germany and others.

India had not advanced past the group/preliminary stage in their first four attempts after table tennis made its debut in the 1988 Games in Seoul. Sharath Kamal ended that streak by becoming the first Indian paddler to advance to the second round at the Olympics, doing so on debut in Athens 2004.

Tokyo 2020 was by far the best performance by the Indian table tennis team in the Olympics. Both Sharath Kamal and Batra would reach the third round in the men’s and women’s singles respectively — the furthest Indians have gone individually. The two would then feature in the Round of 16 in the mixed doubles category, the first time Indian paddlers were involved in the fourth round of the tournament.

Can India land a maiden table tennis medal in the Olympics? Seven-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Sharath Kamal, who also has a couple of Asian Games bronze medals to his credit, certainly has the experience to be able to pull off the almighty task and bring the curtains down on his career with a podium finish.

Batra, who had won mixed doubles bronze along with Sharath Kamal in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, had recently become the first Indian woman to reach the quarter-finals of an elite WTT event by defeating World No 2 and former world champion Wang Manyu as well as World No 14 Nina Mittelham in the Saudi Super Smash in May.

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Batra, for one, feels the Indians have a realistic shot at an Olympic medal in table tennis heading into the Paris Games.

“India qualified for the first time, this is a huge achievement… I am really happy with how we are working together (at the camp). I think we have a shot at the medal and we should give our best.

“The growth of women’s table tennis in India is really inspiring. I see many of my fellow players playing really well. Everyone in the team is motivated and training very hard. Women’s table tennis in India will only grow further for sure,” Batra said during an interview with Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT).

Table tennis schedule at Paris Olympics: The table tennis competition in the Paris Olympics will take place between 27 July and 10 August. The singles events take place in the first week with the women’s and men’s finals scheduled for 3 and 4 August respectively. The team events are slotted for the second week, with the men’s medal events taking place on 9 August and the women’s medal events on the 10th.