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The Hindu
13-05-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Shouldering the hopes of India's mixed doubles revolution in TT — Manush and Diya's big dreams, bigger responsibilities
Indian table tennis has always focused largely on singles. From Achanta Sharath Kamal and G. Sathiyan to Manika Batra, individuals have broken through on the biggest stage to give the sport's identity some muscle in the country. However, the event roster for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics has moved the spotlight on doubles with the introduction of the mixed team event in the sport. Though the International Table Tennis Federation is yet to formalise the format of the mixed team event, there would likely be five matches in a fixture: a mixed doubles match, followed by women's singles, men's singles, women's doubles, and men's doubles. India's gains in the doubles vertical over the last few years are encouraging. The pair of Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee bagged two historic bronze medals at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games and the Asian Championships in 2024. In the men's event, Manush Shah (ranked 75th in singles) and Manav Thakkar, ranked No. 9 in the world, have been registering key wins. The mixed pairing of Manush and Diya Chitale, ranked 11th in the world, and Diya's partnership with Yashaswini Ghorpade, ranked 19th in the women's doubles event, has also been a shot in the arm for the current crop. This is the first time in a little over a decade that two Indian pairs — Manav and Manush (eighth) and Manush and Diya (ninth) — have been seeded in the World Championships, scheduled to be held in Doha from May 17 to 25. The time, therefore, is right for the Table Tennis Federation of India to widen its horizons. Balancing act Diya, fresh from a triumphant mixed doubles campaign in the WTT Contender in Tunis, is now eager to divide her energies among all three events – women's singles, doubles (with Yasashwini), and mixed doubles (with Manush). 'I think every category has equal importance now. It's not that singles are more important than doubles or vice versa. India has the best chance to win a medal at the Olympics in the mixed doubles event because we are doing very well in it. I'm sure many would agree,' Diya told The Hindu. 'In table tennis, everyone plays everything. Now, the mixed team has been introduced. Every event is important to me. My goal is to make it to the mixed doubles quarterfinals at the World Championships,' the reigning National singles champion added. That said, Diya is aware that her strongest event, and the best chance to register solid performances in major events, is in the mixed doubles category with Manush. This partnership began in October 2023, and the duo has been consistent, reaching four semifinals and four quarterfinals in the last one and a half years. 'We linked up in 2023 and entered the quarterfinals in the very first tournament we entered together – the WTT Contender in Muscat, the same year. Over time, our bonding has gotten much stronger,' Diya added. Manush puts the pair's success down to similar playing styles and the use of plain rubbers. 'Both of us are aggressive players. That was the main reason we came together for the category. It was also the main reason why we thought we could be a prospect at the international level. That apart, the serve and receive games of Diya and I are quite complementary to each other,' Manush chimed in. 'We both cheer each other up a lot. I feel that if one of us is not playing so well, the other steps up and tries to help. So that's working well,' Diya added. A fixture that exemplified this synergy was their triumph over Japan's Sora Matsushima and Miwa Harimoto in the final in Tunis. This is a pairing the Indians had lost to earlier in the event's Doha chapter. 'It was the first time that we reached the final of a Contender event. We had played many semifinals before, but we always lost to a few of the top pairs. But I think the pair that we played in the finals in Tunis, we had lost to them earlier this year in the quarterfinals in January,' Diya explained. A turning point for the duo came at the Singapore Smash this year, as they managed to take the fight to some of the top pairs in the sport. 'The Singapore Smash in 2025, where we made it to the quarterfinals, improved our profile. That was the biggest points haul we have accumulated till now,' Manush added. Bridging the gap The 24-year-old, the reigning men's Senior National champion, from Vadodara identified training with left-handed foreign paddlers as a way to develop further. 'To step up our game, we need to practice more with foreign players who are better than us and who are stronger than us as a pair. We would be looking at this year, along with our [India's] head coach, Massimo (Costantini), to find some good sparring partners. (We need) Especially the left-handed ones, because India doesn't have so many left-handed players. That's a major concern for us, but it's something we are trying to solve.' 'Every pair ahead of us in the world ranking has one left-hander and one right-hander. We, as Indians, are not used to taking on high-quality left-handed players. For example, in the WTT Star Contender Chennai in March this year, we lost to the Korean pair of Lim Jonghoon (left-hander) and Shin Yubin (right) in the semifinals. We lost in straight games. The gap between us and the Koreans was wider than we expected at this stage. It was because of a lack of practice against left-handers,' reasoned Manush. This duo has multiple goal posts between the shorter target of the World Championships later this month and the Asian Games next year. A week-long camp in Bengaluru is the first pitstop where some fine-tuning will be done and valuable practice time clocked. 'The goal is to play better as a pair and improve the quality of the game. So, we will take it step by step. We will face tougher pairs in the earlier rounds of the Worlds before going into the quarterfinals. The ultimate goal is to win a medal,' Manush declared. 'We are preparing hard at the coaching camp in Bengaluru, and we couldn't have asked for a better preparatory ground for the World Championships as our confidence is high after the triumph in the WTT Contender Tunis, and there are no tournaments before the Worlds,' the pair said. Diya gears up for her first singles and mixed doubles campaign at this level, having represented India previously in two World Team Championships. Manush is headed to his second World Championships in the individuals, with two World Team campaigns under his belt. Should things fall in place for the duo, they hope to break into the top eight rankings by the year's end.
Hindustan Times
11-05-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
TT: India turns focus to doubles ahead of LA 2028
Mumbai: The senior World Championships in Doha starting on May 17 and the Asian Youth Championships (June 26-July 2) in Tashkent will provide the Indian table tennis team's head coach Massimo Costantini a chance to take stock of and draw a roadmap in an area where Indians have had greater success at global level: doubles. The plan assumes greater significance given that all three doubles events will return to the TT programme at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. It is in those events that Indians have made bigger moves more frequently in top level WTT and multi-sport tournaments in the recent past. A few days ago, Manush Shah and Diya Chitale captured the mixed doubles title at the WTT Contender Tunis, beating the higher-ranked Miwa Harimoto and Sora Matsushima of Japan in the final. A couple of years ago, Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee delivered India's first women's doubles medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games going past the Chinese in their den, backing it up with another bronze medal at the 2024 Asian Championships. A few months back in Doha, Manush and Manav Thakkar became India's first men's doubles pair to reach the WTT Star Contender semis. All these pairs will be in the mix at Doha, and younger, untested ones at the Asian youth tournament. Post that, and once the format and qualification system for the Olympics is known, Costantini will start planning to firm up pairs with LA in mind and perhaps experiment and expand the combinations and pool. 'With the Olympics, doubles now is more relevant than before,' Costantini said. 'All the countries are starting to prepare and deploy more resources on this. It's something we will have to reflect too.' It helps that the current combinations have 'delivered historic results', said the Italian, with things 'quite steady and stable' in mixed doubles (Diya/Manush) and men's doubles (Manush/Manav). The latter are world No.9, while the former's win in Tunis was belief-boosting after losing to the Japanese pair in the Doha Star Contender quarter-finals. 'You don't elevate confidence from just getting points winning lower-level tournaments but by beating the relevant world-class players, the kind that maybe you didn't beat before,' Costantini said. 'For me, it's a little summary of the last 6-8 months, since we restarted the cycle after the (Paris) Olympics. Manav and Manush are almost always in the quarters or semis of the bigger tournaments, and so are Manush and Diya. And they're all relatively young. 'For the rest, we will have to assess from time to time, and whether some results are sporadic achievements.' In the past, such sporadic sparks have faded away in doubles. Manika Batra and Archana Kamath had surged as high as world No.4 in women's doubles but had little to show in terms of big titles. Manika and G Sathiyan teamed up for mixed doubles targetting the Paris Games, and after showing plenty of promise initially, the pair couldn't even qualify. Part of the issue in the Manika-Sathiyan dip was their inability to train together and play enough tournaments. Lessons will have to be learnt from that to sustain the doubles momentum over the next few years. It's where Costantini's role and presence of a national setup will come into play. 'We have well established a national team environment. If this is not there, players will more likely go in different directions, be more individual, and without a proper plan. One time they will play with somebody, and then somebody else, just to make the volume (for points),' the head coach said. 'The more we strengthen this aspect, the better our planning can be, including in testing certain players and getting them into more competitions.' Part of that testing was to bring together Manav and Manika, India's highest ranked singles players currently, for mixed doubles in the post-Paris reset. The combination hasn't taken off just as yet. 'They played in a couple of tournaments but haven't had too many opportunities since. Let's see how it shapes up,' he said.
