Sharath Kamal, Indian table tennis’ long-standing star, feels he is mentally in a better place now than he was last year, even though the deadly second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is creating havoc in every area of life in the country.

“Personally, for me it was worse last year. I did not know what would happen. We had no direction. At least now we know we have a goal in the Tokyo Olympics. I don’t know whether the Olympics will finally happen or not, but we are focused. At least I have something to look forward to,” he said, during a virtual media conference organised by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) on Wednesday.

“Yes, as far as the training regime and foreign exposure go, this is not how it should be in an Olympic year. But I am in a much better situation mentally now than I was a year back. In April, May last year we had no idea what was happening. I knew I had to train and stay fit, but did not know for what.

“I did not know whether I could touch the table or not. There was no information. But now, at least you have some direction.

“We are doing our best to stay afloat and achieve our goal of getting a medal for India at the Olympics — something that the whole country is dreaming of.”

The 38-year-old, playing in his fourth Olympics, said the squad is not under-prepared despite the pandemic.

“I don’t think we are under-prepared. In fact, I played well in the World Table Tennis Star Contender series last month in Doha, beating World No.16 Patrick Franziska of Germany. Manika (Batra) and Sathiyan (Gnanasekaran) too played quite well in Doha.

“I thought my level did not dip in the last one year. Our rankings speak for themselves.

“This could be my best Olympics due to my understanding of mind, body and the experiences that I’ve had over the years,” he added.

However, he said: “In a social way, it is not going to be the best of Olympics. There will not be much festivities and celebrations. We’ll have to adapt as we don’t have many options.”
Sharath, who is World No. 32 in singles, said: “Things became a lot better for us once TOPS came into the fold... With almost all our needs taken care of, we are able to concentrate on our training.”

He believes that he has a good chance of ending on the podium in Tokyo, especially in the mixed doubles with Batra.

“Back in 2004, I had a dream of winning an Olympic medal and 17 years later, I am sitting here with the hope that it may actually become a reality.”

And then on a lighter note, he added with a smile: “If not, we can always blame it on the virus.”

Speaking about his partnership with Batra, he said: “We both do really well under pressure even as singles players. When a match gets close, we are both able to raise our levels a notch up.

“The second thing is, we have different styles of playing. She is able to slow the game down fantastically well and I am able to speed it up from there.

“That is where the opponents also are not able to play comfortably against us. So that is how we are trying to build our game.”