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Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
Goal is to break into top-75 and then to top-50: young paddler Gorpade
Ahmedabad, Having made her senior debut in 2024, young Indian women table tennis player Yashaswani Ghorpade has fast risen in the sport, breaking into world top 100 the same year. But Ghorpade, ranked 84 in the world currently, is now determined to break into top-75 and then to top-50 to seal her place in next year's Asian Games in Japan and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. "I was in 8th standard when I won my first national championships in Under-15 and then I won with Under-19 national championships. Last year, I did well in the domestic circuit. I finished second in the national rankings. I also got into top 100 world rankings last year," she told PTI. " my first goal is to be in the top-75 and to become India no.1 this year only. These are my short-term one-year goals. But of course Asian Games is the next target. The next big Games after that are the Olympics. So after getting into top 75, the goal is to get into top 50 and get a good seeding to make it to the Olympics. "Asian Games there is a criteria that we need to maintain good national ranking as well as world rankings to qualify directly," she added. Ghorpade partners with Diya Chitale in women's doubles and pairs up with Harmeet Desai in mixed doubles. Highlighting some of her achievements in her nascent journey, she said: "I have been former a world no.1 in Under-15 girls, and we have been the runner-up in WTT Contender last year." However, the journey was not easy for Ghorpade as she struggled with fitness from childhood. "I started my sports journey when I was in second standard. I was not a very strong kid and I used to fall sick often, so my parents wanted me to start sports, something indoor. I noticed table tennis was going on in my school, so I joined that. "I have been connected with table tennis for last 12 years and its been an amazing, continuous journey. When I started I would have never thought I would be at this place. I am very grateful," said the rising paddler, who studies second year in Jain University. Ghorpade, who idolises Manika Batra and Desai, also shared her future plans. "Three Smash tournaments are lined up in the coming 2 months US, Europe and China and then Asian Championships to be held in Bhubaneswar in October," she said. "I do look up to Manika di and Harmeet bhaiya. Both of them have been amazing. Manika di has given us a very high bench mark and Harmeet bhaiya has always been a very good supporter." In the ongoing Season 6 of Ultimate Table Tennis, Ghorpade is turning out for UMumba TT, having made her debut in the tournament last year with two-time defending champions Goa Challengers. "This is my second year in UTT. First season was amazing, I was with the Goa Challengers and it was dream come true to win the title. "UTT gave very good foundation for women's TT in India. In UTT we get to play with the foreign players, get to interact with them," she concluded.
The Hindu
18-05-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Table Tennis World Championships 2025: Manush-Diya pair wins, Harmeet-Yashaswini duo out in 1st round
India's mixed doubles campaign at the Table Tennis World Championships in Doha, Qatar, began on a bittersweet note on Sunday. While the ninth-seeded pair of Manush Shah and Diya Chitale started with a win in straight games, the 14th-seeded duo of Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade failed to capitalise on a 2-0 lead and also wasted three match points to exit the competition in the opening round. Manush and Diya, who won their maiden WTT Contender title in Tunis last this month, had no trouble in beating the Algerian pair of Mehdi Bouloussa and Malissa Nasri 3-0 (11-2, 11-7, 11-6) in 16 minutes. They will next face either the Korean pair of Oh Junsung and Kim Nayeong or the Kiwi duo of Dean Shu and Jocelyn Lam. READ | Table Tennis World Championships 2025: Ayhika-Sutirtha, Yashaswini-Diya give India winning start; Sreeja knocked out in first round Facing the unseeded French pair of Thibault Poret and Leana Hochart, Harmeet and Yashaswini bagged the first two games 11-8 and 11-6. The Indians had a 9-6 lead in the third game but Poret and Hochart managed to fight back, winning six of the next seven points. The French duo won the fourth game 11-8 to take the match to a decider. Harmeet and Yashaswini were in control, leading 6-2, and had three match points at 10-7 before allowing their opponents to make another comeback. Later in the day, Manika Batra, Manav Thakkar, Ankur Bhattacharjee, G. Sathiyan and Yashaswini will begin their campaign in singles. Sathiyan will also be in action in men's doubles with Harmeet.
Hindustan Times
17-05-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
TT Worlds: Sreeja ousted, other Indians advance
Mumbai: Sreeja Akula, the India No.1 in singles, suffered another early exit as she crashed out in the opening round of the World Table Tennis Championships in Doha while the country's doubles pairs made winning starts on Saturday. Also getting off the blocks in singles were young Manush Shah and Diya Chitale with contrasting opening-round victories at the Qatar University. World No.34 Sreeja took the first game but then surrendered to a 4-1 (11-9, 8-11, 6-11, 5-11, 2-11) defeat to Thailand's Suthasini Sawettabut, ranked 84 in the ITTF charts. It marks another disappointing result this year for the 26-year-old from Hyderabad, who had displaced Manika Batra as India No.1 last year. Sreeja had a fine 2024 season in which she won a WTT Contender title, made the singles Round of 16 at the Paris Olympics and surged to a career-best ranking of No.21 after her debut Olympics campaign. Since the last few months, however, she has struggled for form and peak fitness. In doubles, the top Indian men's pair of Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah, seeded eighth, had a straightforward opening victory. They got past the Slovenian combine of Peter Hribar and Deni Kozul 3-0 (11-7, 11-8, 11-6). It wasn't as straightforward for Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee. The Hangzhou Asian Games bronze medallists, seeded 14th in the women's doubles draw, were two games to one down but rallied to beat Turkey's Ozge Yilmaz and Ece Harac 3-2 (4-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-9, 11-7). Diya and Yashaswini Ghorpade, seeded 12th, defeated the Uzbek pair Markhabo Magdieva and Asel Erkebaeva 3-1 (9-11, 11-2, 11-9, 11-8). Manush and Diya, who will also feature in the mixed doubles draw as ninth seeds and will open their campaign on Sunday, came back to win their respective singles opening rounds. Manush had a topsy-turvy ride in going past Portugal's Tiago Apolonia 4-2 (11-6, 2-11, 11-7, 11-6, 5-11, 11-6), while Diya defeated Spain's Sofia-Xuan Zhang 4-0 (11-4, 11-7, 11-3, 14-12).
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.
