Manika Batra, India’s top woman’s paddler, has been training with her partner G. Sathiyan here at the Raman Performance High-Performance TT Centre to prepare for mixed doubles events before a series of World Table Tennis (WTT) tournaments in Muscat, Singapore and Doha next month.
“It’s been a good two days of practice so far. We have sparring partner Anirban Ghosh and my coach S. Raman sir guiding us. Manika will be here till February 18. Training for short periods before a tournament is the way forward,” said Sathiyan, India’s top male paddler.
Ranked No. 10 in the world, the mixed doubles pair is keen to move further up the ladder and the duo has roughly planned a calendar to train more together. “Since she came here, I will probably go to her place in Pune in April depending on our schedule. We are definitely looking at winning medals in international events,” he said. “We will train together till February 18. We have been doing well without much practice when we won a WTT tournament in Budapest in August last year. It is important that we have focussed and intense training for short periods.”
