India's new table tennis coach Peter Engel today expressed his frustration at the lack of focus and discipline among most of Indian players and said that their easy-going approach will not help them in achieving success at the international level
"From what I have seen in the last two months, the players have the talent but are not giving their 100 percent. What is irritating is they tend to pick and choose their training sessions without realising that this approach will not work if they want to succeed at international level," Engel said at the sidelines of the ongoing North Zone National Ranking Championships here.
The German, however, refused to name the players. Since his arrival in October he has not spent enough time with the senior players other than travelling with them for tournaments in Germany and Poland.
Yet he has spent some quality time at both the NIS, Patiala and at the Lucknow camp until last week before coming here.
Talking about his experience with the campers during the ongoing North Zone National Ranking Championships here, Engel said he was disappointed to see players preferring long holidays than spending extra hours around the table.
"What surprised me was how the seniors found excuses to skip training before the tournaments. Sometimes they don't want to train citing festivals. If they waste so much time on these things, how are they going to concentrate on the game," asked the German, who said he would work to change the system after his Christmas break.
In fact, earlier coaches Massimo Costantini from Italy and Poland's Leszek Kucharaski have said the same about some of the Indian paddlers.
