In appearance, Akula Sreeja is anything but a giant-slayer. But then, as they say, never judge a book by its cover.
Few would have believed that with her brittle-as-a-biscuit build she could knock out some of the biggest names in Indian table tennis.
Yet, she did just that at the 11Even Sports National-ranking (Central Zone) table tennis championships in Indore.
Rank outsider Sreeja ousted Olympian Manika Batra in the round-of-16, fifth seed Mousumi Paul in the quarterfinals and reigning national champion Madhurika Patkar in the semis.
The frail 18-year-old, who incidentally had to qualify for the main draw, fell at the last hurdle to second seed Sutirtha Mukherjee.
“At this age, defeating Manika, one of the best in the country, is a great achievement,” Soumyjajit Ghosh, an early achiever himself, told The Hindu , adding that Sreeja might have benefitted from Soumyadeep Roy’s guidance.
Roy had recently conducted a three-week camp at the MLR Sports Academy outside Secunderabad, where Sreeja and several top finishers at Indore such as Arjun Ghosh had trained. The Kolkata-based mentor however gave credit to Sreeja’s personal coach Somnath Ghosh.
“Hard work and systematic training with Ghosh has shown tremendous improvement in her game over the last couple of months. Her forehand is a lot better, but her strength is easy adaptability to tactical changes,” Roy said.
Roy wasn’t perturbed by her featherweight frame. “She’s fit,” he said. “Power and strength can be taken care of.”
There was praise for Sreeja, a B. Com student at Badruka College, from other high places too.
“A good prospect for the future of Indian table tennis... she played truly well and to her potential,” said Indian coach Massimo Costantini.
Somnath, a former AP champion, who has coached her since 2010, said: “Sreeja is the most hard working and dedicated girl I have seen.”
“She plays with pimpled rubber on the backhand, and wanted to shift to soft rubber. I urged her to continue with the original surface, and it has paid off in her very first National-ranking tournament.”
He too attributed her recent success to training with world-class facilities at the MLR Academy, and the support from , Telangana State Table Tennis Association secretary Prakash Raju.
