Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Young paddlers get ready to vie for top honours

Young table tennis players honing their skills at a two-week State-level coaching camp in Vijayawada on Monday.

VIJAYAWADA: The Dandamudi Rajagopal Rao Indoor Stadium on Mahatma Gandhi Road is witnessing hectic table tennis activity, with around 20 teenage paddlers from all over Andhra Pradesh training hard to bring laurels to their State in the 70th national sub-junior championship to be held here from November 24 to 30.

The city, which had hosted a couple of major ranking tournaments, is gearing up for the national tournament, which will feature 600 paddlers from all over the country vying for honours.

Andhra Pradesh has fielded four teams – both boys and girls teams – in under-12 (cadet) and under-14 (sub-junior) segments. The players have been picked up based on their performance at the senior inter-district championship held at Anantapur last month.

“We are pinning our hopes on cadet girls’ team, which took the silver medal in the team championship in the Chennai National last year. K. Spoorthy, Saira Banu and Akshi played brilliantly but lost to North Bengal in the final. Both Spoorthy and Akshi surprised everyone by reaching the quarterfinals and pre-quarterfinals in the individual category,” said Andhra Pradesh Table Tennis Association secretary S.M. Sultan, on Monday.

Three coaches, M. Venu from Hyderabad, Gousia Pyari and M. Srinivas from Vijayawada, are monitoring the camp and imparting both fitness lessons and new techniques to the young paddlers.

“As the tournament is fast approaching, we are concentrating more on technique. Most of the players are fast getting accustomed to the anti-pimpled rubber, which is meant to take the pace out of the ball,” said Mr. Venu, who coaches paddlers at Gujarati Seva Dal in Hyderabad. The children are so committed that some of them are appearing for their unit examinations in the morning and attending the camp in the evening, unmindful of the fatigue. Mr. Venu felt that players such as Jagadish Krishna and Gowtham Krishna of Hyderabad had the wherewithal to upset even the best of the players.

“Senior girls like Harshitha and Mrudhula are in fine nick. Our main rivals would be teams from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Our players will also have the advantage of playing in front of their home crowd,” said Gousia Pyari, who coaches the girls’ teams.

Expressing hope that the national sub-junior championship would inspire many youngsters to take up table tennis in a big way, Mr. Sultan said he was expecting more schoolchildren to throng the venue to witness the best of budding paddlers in action.

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