Winning all four medals at stake in two back-to-back State ranking table tennis tournaments is no mean a feat. More so if the achievement is by a 14-year-old girl, then she deserves a huge pat on her back.
Exhibiting girl power in a determined manner, young Kajol, a student of MSR High School, swept all the medals both at Rajamahendravaram and Anantapur much to the delight of her coaches and administrators.
“Now she is knocking at the doors of the Indian sub-junior team,” said Andhra Pradesh Table Tennis Association secretary S.M. Sultan. “She will be eligible to play in the next two all India ranking fixtures at Indore and Rajkot. If she finishes on the top eight, she will be eligible to play for the country in the sub-junior level,” he added.
Kajol comes from a humble beginning, and she started playing the game under her first coach P. Panduranga Rao at the KBN College and later shifted to the IGMC Stadium to train under the watchful eyes of coach Srinivas.
Mr. Sultan said that Kajol had all the makings of a champion and the need of the hour was exposure. “If she plays all the State and national ranking tournaments from June to November, she will get a rich exposure as she will be playing with best of the players from the country.”
He said the State’s bifurcation made things worse for table tennis, as the best of players from Andhra Pradesh were settled in Hyderabad by virtue of their employment. “We have started from the scratch and local academies are playing a key role in nurturing talent and producing talented paddlers,” he added.
He said many talented AP players bagged seats in engineering, medical colleges and jobs in various establishments by virtue of their exploits in the game.
“Though their giving-up-the-game hurts us, we are happy that they found way forward in their lives through the game,” Mr. Sultan said.
