Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
— Mark Twain
Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.
— Dan Gable
The two profound quotes best explain the rise of India’s top table tennis player, G. Sathiyan. The 25-year-old has dared to dream big and has had the guts to chase them.
Over the last three years, Sathiyan has won two major singles titles, three medals at the Commonwealth Games and a historic team bronze at the Asian Games. He was also part of a best-ever 13th-place finish in the World Team Championship.
Having hovered in the 300s in the ITTF world rankings in 2014, Sathiyan broke into the top 50 this year and is currently ranked No. 40.
Out with the old
The results have been down to a relentless quest to improve. Shedding his safety-first approach was vital. It involved long hours of training with coach S. Raman, a CWG medallist, learning new serves, receives, and, most importantly, choosing the brave option against higher-ranked paddlers in major tournaments.
These efforts paid off spectacularly at last year’s Spanish Open. According to Raman, Sathiyan won the event because of the risks he took against Japan’s Kazuhiro Yoshimura in the final. “At 8-8 and 9-9 in the fifth game [it was best of seven], Sathiyan didn’t play the game he is known to,” says the 49-year-old.
Sathiyan concurs. “Normally, I don’t take risks at that stage. But I tried something new with my serve. I wanted to try something that I hadn’t tried. I got that thought. In fact, I changed a lot in the final, starting with my thought process. I tweaked my style of serve, the spin and where it is put on the table.”
Sathiyan didn’t just shock his opponent; he also pleasantly surprised his coach. For Raman, his pupil was “finally on my page” in terms of risk-taking.
“Once the approach succeeded, it steamrolled into every tournament,” says Raman. “With a similar approach, he scripted wins over CWG champion Gao Ning of Singapore [in the classification match of the 2018 World Team Championship] and [2016] European champion [Emmanuel] Lebesson of France [again in the World Team Championship]. These victories are really massive.”
Paddler, interrupted
Sathiyan has always felt that success might have come his way earlier had the study of engineering (2010-14) not interrupted his career. During this period, his peers — Soumyajit Ghosh and Harmeet Desai, against whom he had success in the juniors — went on to represent India on the big stage.
“Managing both [studies and sports] becomes difficult,” says Sathiyan, on how colleges generally treat its sportspersons. “But our director was very co-operative.”
It wasn’t all bad, Raman says: “His engineering education came in handy when I was explaining spin and angles.”
Besides, other positive events occurred during this time. In 2012, he was offered a job by ONGC (“the parents’ part was sorted out,” he says) and a scholarship under the Elite Scheme by the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu.
He was also introduced to GoSports Foundation, which brought to the table expertise in sports nutrition, psychology, mental conditioning and bio-mechanics. His partnership with Raman began in late 2012, as well. “It was a new journey, a second innings so to say,” says Sathiyan.
This journey was all about replicating at the senior level what he had done so successfully in his junior days: win titles. Indeed, it irked Sathiyan that he hadn’t, until that point, managed the transition.
Sathiyan, who was spotted and groomed by three-time National champion V. Chandrasekar, claimed his first big title at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune. He calls the triumph a “turning point” because it opened his eyes to the possibility of a career in table tennis. Opportunities to train abroad and with the senior national squad followed, as did a bronze in the World junior team championship.
Renewed focus
But while he was in engineering college, he couldn’t devote all his energies to table tennis. It wasn’t until 2014 that the monkey was off his back. He now had the time to discuss the sport with Raman and train hard. He also focused on fitness. Under Ramji Srinivasan at Quantum Leap Performance, Chennai, his physical conditioning improved tremendously.
In his first National-ranking tournament after graduating, Sathiyan stunned everyone by beating Soumyajit in the final of the inter-institutional tournament in New Delhi. His rivals knew he had arrived on the national stage.
“I deleted my engineering files from my computer and put the TT files in it,” says Sathiyan, laughing. He went full blast in 2015, competing in nearly a dozen international tournaments. He changed his approach, becoming process-oriented.
Tragedy struck when he lost his father, but he used the grief to spur him on. “It really changed me,” says Sathiyan. “I started to realise that I have nothing else to lose. My mother said, ‘TT is the only way to come out of this’. I channelised all my anger into the sport. I started playing really aggressive.”
Success came to him in the form of the Belgium Open title. It was unexpected; he certainly wasn’t one of the contenders. “I was seeded 26th,” he says. “Winning the final 4-0 against a local player, Cedric Nuytinck, gave me a lot of confidence.”
This confidence was in evidence during the inaugural season of Ultimate Table Tennis, in which he was the only Indian to remain unbeaten.
Sathiyan’s mission is an Olympic medal in the next six years, and he has his path charted. He is set to train with the national teams of Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea. “To improve, he should play with the top Asian countries and avoid the European style,” says Raman. “He should play close to the table and not hesitate to counter attack. Close-to-the-table play is Asia’s strength; 95% points are won there.”
The China question
India has improved, no doubt, but how strong is it compared to China, still the sport’s gold-standard? Sathiyan says India is progressing. With the present ranking system emphasising current form, he says China’s players will have to compete more and when they do, others will get to know their game better.
“[Britain’s World No. 31] Liam Pitchford beat [Grand Slam winner] Ma Long in the Bulgarian Open in August. The Chinese domination is on the wane. This is just the beginning. It will not take time. Even a medal in the Asian Games we thought would take time. Now it has happened. So it is possible,” he says.
Sathiyan has certainly helped stretch the limits of what was thought possible for Indian paddlers. He was successful in his maiden attempts at the Commonwealth Games, World Team Championship and Asian Games, where he beat the higher-ranked Kenta Matsudaira of Japan in a pressure match. This is no small matter. It shows what dedication and meticulous planning, when allied with talent and intelligence, can do.
