What the victory over World No 13 Jorgic means for Sharath Kamal’s Olympics hopes

Before this year’s World Table Tennis (WTT) Singapore Smash event, India’s 10-time national champion Sharath Kamal hadn’t won a single game in the two seasons of the top-tier event. His best performance at a WTT event was reaching the Round of 16 at a Star Contender (second-tier) event back in 2021.

He smashed away all doubts and concerns over his fitness and form with a superlative performance on Wednesday, coming back from a game down to beat World No. 13 Darko Jorgic 3-1 (8-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-9) and enter the Round of 16 of the Smash.

“I’ve played him twice before this, and I’ve lost both times. So I went into the match thinking that at least let me start off with one set, because last time I lost 0-3,” Sharath told the WTT media channel after his win. “From the second set onwards, slowly, I found my right momentum. There were a lot of shots which in the first set, I was a bit hesitant about. But, as the game went on, I went for my shots and continued to put them in difficult places,” he said.

That Sharath could pull off a victory despite the Slovenian dominating the first game, shows why he has been the story of this tournament, having entered the main draw after going through the rigours of qualifying. Sharath, ranked World No. 88, began his campaign by beating Romania’s Andre Istrate then Yuta Tanaka of Japan, and finally Slovenia’s Deni Kozul to book his place in the main draw.

He then simply outplayed the in-form Chilean World No. 31 Nicolas Burgos 3-0 (11-5, 11-4, 11-6) in the round of 64.

Race to the Olympics

There was not a lot left for the 41-year-old to prove when it came to world rankings and his focus would be more on events with the Indian team, like the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, and other team championships.

It’s different this time around though. India, against all odds, qualified for the Paris Olympics as a team after reaching the Round of 16 of the World Championships in Busan last month. That means that Sharath is close to achieving his lifelong dream of playing the team event at an Olympics. He has been India’s best paddler for over two decades but over the latter part of the past decade, he has been yanked off his turf by the likes of G Sathiyan, Harmeet Desai, and even the young Manav Thakkar

Only three players can make the team in Paris – with one being a reserve player — so, to confirm his spot in India’s team or rather, avoid any hiccups, Sharath knew that he would have to improve his rankings by having a couple of great runs at WTT before the cutoff in June.

He will pocket more than $10,000 as a result of reaching the pre-quarters, Sharath will be even more thrilled with the 175 ranking points added to his tally that should take him close to the top-50 in world rankings. If he wins his next game, he could enter the top-35 in world rankings and put his place beyond doubt.

Standing between him and a place in the quarterfinal is World No. 22 Omar Assar of Egypt. The 32-year-old reigning African Games champion led his country to the quarterfinal of the World TT Championships last year and is a force to be reckoned with.

Sharath’s 25-year-old coach

Sharath is rarely seen with a coach at an international WTT event and it was quite surprising to see him with a 25-year-old coach in Singapore — Anders Lind. The Danish 12-time national champion competes at the international level while also coaching. Lind is a close friend of Sharath and the warm bond between them was clearly evident in the match against Jorgic.

Lind was quite animated on the bench, passing on instructions to Sharath, who celebrated whenever their strategy seemed to bear fruition. The only time Lind was nervous was when Sharath was up 10-6 in the fourth game and lost three points to make it 10-9 before winning the match with a little bit of luck. The ball ricocheted off the edge of his racket and somehow found its way onto the table.“We’ve been friends for a long time. And he also helped me in the qualification matches earlier. He was free today and he’s pretty good,” said Sharath about Lind.

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“He’s boasting about his records as a coach; that he’s quite positive. He has won more matches than he has lost. And it proved again today.”

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