10-member TT squad leaves for mighty Asian Games challenge

A 10-member table tennis squad, spearheaded by the most experienced Sharath Kamal, left today for Incheon to take part in the ongoing Asian Games.
The table tennis events at the Games begin from September 27 and continue until October 4.
The team members, preparing at the NIS Patiala, assembled here in the capital today along with the two coaches -- Peter Engel (foreign coach) and Bhawani Mukherjee (national coach) -- and were upbeat about putting up a good show.
Coach Engel admitted that it will be a tough ask for the teams to do well against Asian powerhouses like China, Japan and Korea in team events, but expected the Indian paddlers to do "reasonably well" in individual events.

"In team events, we have no chance of any medal but I will be happy if our boys and girls are able to finish among top eight positions. But our boys can do really well in individually," he said.
TTFI secretary-general Dhanraj Choudhary also admitted that Asian Games were like the World Championships "because the world beaters are from the same continent (Asia) and the Games are essentially for those from it."

The teams: Men: A. Sharath Kamal, Soumyajit Ghosh, Harmeet Desai, Antony Amalraj and Sanil Shetty.
Women: Ankita Das, Madhurika Patkar, Poulomi Ghatak, Manika Batra and Neal Aggarwal.
Coaches: Peter Engel and Bhawani Mukherjee.