The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) has decided to bid for the 2024 World championships with the support of the Union Government.
During an interaction with The Hindu here on Tuesday, TTFI secretary M.P. Singh, TTFI advisor Dhanraj Choudhary, and newly elected president of the Commonwealth Table Tennis Association Vivek Kohli said the federation has already sounded its intentions to key officials of the International Table Tennis Federation recently and has received a positive response.
The bid process is to start next year. The Union Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs has offered all possible help for the development of the game through the last three years, enhancing the financial outlay for table tennis to ₹12 crore last year. “We are hopeful that the Government will also support us in bringing the World championships back to India,” they said.
Olympic qualification
In the next few months TTFI will have to ensure the Indian men’s team qualification for next year’s Olympics in Tokyo. With this in mind, it has lined up a coaching camp in China, prior to next month’s Asian championships in Indonesia. This will be followed by a camp each in Germany and Portugal before the team qualification process is held in the Iberian nation in January 2020.
Efforts are also being made to help Achanta Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra get a Olympics qualification spot in mixed doubles.
New coach
Likewise, the TTFI is also involved in the identification of a new foreign coach for India’s senior teams, now that the Canadian coach who was supposed to join the side early this month pulled out of his commitment due to a knee injury.
“We hope to sort this out within the next few weeks so much so that the new coach will be able to join the players prior to the qualifying team event in Portugal.”
Giving in to players’ demand, TTFI has also decided to use a same quality brand of balls in all tournaments henceforth. TTFI top brass was also all praise for the conduct of the ongoing South Zone championships.
