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Xtra Time Web Desk: The upcoming Tokyo Games might be the best chance for India to open its medal count in table tennis at the Olympics. With a total of 126 athletes across 18 sporting categories, India will field its biggest contingent at the Tokyo Olympics. Among the several disciplines in which India has a bright medal prospect, table tennis is definitely one of them. Xtra Time analyzes the Indian table tennis team’s chances of winning a medal at Tokyo.

Indian squad:

Sharath Kamal Achanta, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Manika Batra & Sutirtha Mukherjee

Past performances in Olympics:

India’s performance in table tennis at the Olympics is below average to say the least. The country is yet to win a medal at the Olympics. Sharath Kamal, who will be participating in his fourth Olympics, is yet to cross the second stage (at Beijing Olympics) in quadrennial event. The paddler from Tamil Nadu was knocked out in Round 1 at the 2012 Rio Olympics. He lost in Round 1 to Romanian Adrian Crisan. Manika Batra too lost her first round match to Katarzyna Grzybowska of Poland in Rio.

The Indian contingent will be high on confidence after their success at 2018 Commonwealth Games. India bagged 8 gold medals, 2 silver and 3 bronze at Gold Coast. The quartet of Manika Batra, Sharath Kamal, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran will be competing in three events at Tokyo Olympics. In the men’s singles, veteran Sharath Kamal will be making his fourth appearance. He will be accompanied by Sathiyan Gnanasekaran while Manika Batra and Suthirtha Mukherjee will be competing in the women’s singles. Manika and Sharath will team up for the mixed doubles event which makes its debut at Tokyo 2020. They will be pitted against 15 other pairs and it is the best chance for India to win a medal in this category. A total of 65 men and 70 women will be competing in the respective singles event.

Sharath Kamal:

The veteran paddler will be heading into his fourth Olympics with a hope to win a medal. With four Commonwealth Games golds, two Asian Games medals, three Olympic Games appearances and two ITTF Pro Tour titles under his belt, Sharath Kamal is arguably the best Indian table tennis player in history of Indian TT. Given his career and experience, Sharath is India's best medal hope. The world No. 32 Sharath Kamal will be hoping the go beyond the 2^nd round which he achieved at the Beijing Olympics.

Manika Batra:

She is the best bet as far as winning a medal is concerned at the Tokyo Games. Manika is the highest ranked (63) women’s player in the country and did exceedingly well since her failure at the Rio Olympics where she was knocked out of the first round by Katarzyna Grzybowska of Poland. Batra is the first Indian woman to win a singles gold at the Commonwealth Games (2018 CWG at Gold Coast). She is also the first women paddler from the country to break into the top 50. It goes without saying that the competition will be even tougher for Batra at the Olympics.

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran:

He will be making his maiden Olympics appearance. The 28-year-old had qualified for the games after he defeated Pakistan's Muhammad Rameez in the qualification tournament played in March. He was also part of the men's team which won gold at CWG 2018. The World No 38 is heading to Tokyo after a satisfactory stint in the Polish league.

Sutirtha Mukherjee:

The youngest member of the Indian team, Sutirtha qualified for Tokyo Olympic by beating India No 1 Manika Batra at the Asian Olympic Qualification. The 25 year old girl from Naihati district in West Bengal topped the South Asia group at the Asian Olympic Qualification Tournament. Sutirtha was left in despair after she could not make it to the Rio Olympics due to a ban for alleged age fraud. She worked hard to climb from world No 502 to 98 in the last three years. During this time she won two national singles titles came in 2017 and 2019 and in 2018 she was part of India’s CWG gold-winning women’s team. She then gained crucial experience at the Ultimate Table Tennis, and in 2019 had famous upset wins over the much higher-ranked Petrissa Solja of Germany and Taipei’s Cheng I-Ching. In 2020, she stunned world No 19 Bernadette Szocs at the ITTF World Team Qualification tournament before the pandemic struck.