JAKARTA : L’appetito viene dal mangiare. This is the Italian proverb foreign coach Massimo Costantini says to describe an unprecedented second medal for India in table tennis at the Asian Games. The appetite comes from eating. The 60-year-old couldn’t have been more accurate in his summation. Till last week, they had only one medal in the history of Asian Games. In less than 100 hours, they have doubled that count.
After the men’s team engineered a sensational take down of Japan in the team quarterfinals to give them a bronze, the mixed doubles pair of A Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra turned the tables on both South Korea as well as North Korea in a surreal one hour of high octane sport inside Hall B of the Jakarta International Expo. The pair — who had trained for the first time ever during a pre-tournament camp in China less than three weeks ago — had bulldozed past Malaysia in a Round of 32 match to set up a meeting with one of the giants of the sport.
Before the match, Sharath had slim hope of an upset. “Never beaten them,” he said. “Let’s see. It’s going to be very tough.” The 36-year-old and the the 23-year-old not only beat them but got past them in a very un-Indian way. When the pressure was on, they stood up. With the match tied at 2-2, the duo played like they were possessed by the table tennis Gods. Forehand down the line winners, backhand passing shots and enough revolutions on the ball to make Shane Warne proud... it was almost like watching China.
An hour later, they went one better. After dispatching one Korea, they did a number on their northern neighbours, again in five bum-clenching games. They did suffer the disappointment of losing to China in the semis but both Sharath and Costantini were proud of what they had done. “We hadn’t expected this.” The former even said that ‘this was the first time I am actually beating a South Korean player in a competition. It’s an amazing feeling. I must have played them some 100 times. I guess there is a first time for everything.”
So how did India mastermind the unthinkable? It was planned in China and executed in Jakarta keeping Tokyo in mind. “Manika and I started playing together in China in the camp because they had introduced a mixed doubles competition at the Tokyo Olympics,” Sharath said. “We also had one eye on these Games. We are a strange pair because she (Manika) is a stopper while I am a hitter. This means that opponents should constantly be on the move while facing us otherwise they won’t get that balance between defence and offence. And that is what happened against the South Koreans. Manika would set up the point for me and I would finish them. She played an important role.”
The same tactics couldn’t be used against North Korea, another set of players against whom the three-time Olympian has struggled. Their pair had started reading Manika’s drops and the action of the long-pimpled rubber (the rubber she uses is special and it helps her in putting balls back in play). So both their players started standing near the table to pick it on the up. A mid-match change of tactics changed the course of the match. “I realised what they were doing in the second game, they started reading how Manika was stopping so I just told her, ‘listen, I think we both should just go for it if we have the chance’.”
If they hadn’t, India would have come back empty-handed. They were down 7-9 in the second and having lost the first 4-11, it would have been a huge blow. “If we had lost that, we would have been done. It was crucial for us because we were behind all the time. To come back from there and to seal it gave us the belief.”
The Chennai lad has the belief that they can do something special in singles as well but right now he wants to be left alone after two energy sapping days. “After the team medal, all I wanted was a beer. Now I want an ambulance, a bed and a nice sleep.”Singles competition will start from Thursday. If these displays are anything to go by, Indian paddlers should be ignored by their more illustrious opponents at their own risk.
swaroop@newindianexpress.com