Indian Junior team returning from Karachi

Barely days after returning from Karachi, where he led the Indian junior contingent of table tennis players to the top, with 10 gold medals and four silvers, 18-year -old Shubham Sharma has his eyes trained on the Asian Junior Table Tennis Championships to be held in Singapore. ‘‘India is the number one table tennis team in South Asia, and there’s an assured passage to at least the quarterfinal stage of any South Asian tournament. But the Asian Championships are different,’’ says the winner of the Under-15 South Asian Junior Championships. With competition from countries like China, Korea and Japan, Shubham refuses to cower before the challenges posed by these table tennis giants. ‘‘Whenever we (the Indian team) take part, we go with the aim of winning a medal. The Chinese or Korean players all come under the top 10 in the world, so it will be tough. But you never know,’’ he says.

It was Shubham’s tenacity, backed by his coaches Ibrahim Khan, and Nagender Reddy at the St. Paul’s Table Tennis Academy, that pushed him to Number 5 in Asia in the Under-15 category in 2005. However, this will be the last year for Shubham to participate in the junior category. Next year he will be playing only in the senior circuit. And it’s a circuit filled with strong players. ‘‘In the national level tournaments, right from the first round, the games are tough. Whereas in the state-level ranking tournaments, it’s a little less intense.’’ Shubham, in fact, was the first table tennis player from the state to represent the country in 35 years! ‘‘In the national-level, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are the best, doing consistently well. Over here, I feel, that sometimes players become satisfied with just their state-level performances, and the hunger to do well even at the national level vanishes,’’ he says. ‘‘Most of the rising young players opt for higher education, quitting their sport.’’ The hunger to succeed is yet to be satiated for Shubham though. Plans to shift to Delhi, to join the Sri Ram College of Commerce and study B.Com (Hons) also augur well with the fact that commuting to most of the national camps now will be easier. ‘‘The national camps are usually held in Patiala or Ajmer. And this way, I can study and concentrate on my game!’’

But if there’s one grouse for the young table tennis player, it’s that after seven years of winning titles both at home and abroad, the government or the SAAP is yet to issue any sort of acknowledgement or reward to him. ‘‘Even a certificate as an appreciating gesture would have made me happy,’’ he signs off.