Maria Rony and Seraha Jacob have come up with some stunning performances in the State table tennis circuit and made an occasional mark in the junior national circle.
But the last couple of years, the questions have been coming up thick and fast: How good are they on the senior national circuit? Will they crumble against top girls such as West Bengal’s National champion Mouma Das, Poulomi Ghatak, and Tamil Nadu’s K. Shamini?
Maria and Seraha, who are coached by Bobby Joseph at the Alappuzha YMCA Table Tennis Academy, provided the answer at the 35th National Games here on Wednesday.
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The two juniors jolted the top-seeded pair of Mouma and Poulomi in the women’s doubles quarterfinal at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium and gave Kerala its first-ever National Games medal in the sport. They lost in the doubles semi-final later but both the losing semi-final teams are assured of a bronze medal. It was certainly a historic day for the sport in the State.
“Mouma and Poulomi are attacking players but we forced them on the defensive,” said Seraha, who like Maria, is just 17. “We had nothing to lose, we played freely. We knew they would be under pressure because they were the top seeds.”
With Alappuzha making waves in the sport, Seraha now wants the State government to build a full-fledged academy in the State. “Our YMCA academy is good but we need a bigger one. If there is more space, the pace of our shots will be different,” she explained.
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Also inspired is Ambika Radhika Suresh, Kerala’s lone Olympian and senior national champion in the sport. “This medal by Maria and Seraha has really inspired me. I’m coaching little kids (at the K.R. Pillai Academy, named after her father, at the Kadavanthra YMCA in Kochi) and this has given me confidence that we can produce champions,” said Radhika.