Imagine for a moment that you are in Goa. What comes first to your mind? Beaches, Sunburn Festival, Portuguese history, parties and nightlife ;). But for me, it reminds me of the joy of Table Tennis. Strange, you may think, but not so much if you are a sports fan like me. The first-ever international WTT (World Table Tennis) tournament in India was organised in Goa, held at the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium of Goa University. It remains a mystery to me why we choose to name our stadia after politicians with questionable connections to sports, but that is a story for another day. The 4000 seating capacity stadium is suitable for any indoor sporting event. However, I would have preferred if the event took place in the national capital, which happens to be my hometown, and has a history of conducting international events like the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games. That is just me being a selfish fan :)!
WTT (World Table Tennis) is the new events and commercial entity of the ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation) with the aim to popularise the sport by conducting events across the globe. Created in 2019, the first event was held in Macao in 2020. The event structure involves Grand Smashes, Cup Finals, Champions Series, Star Contender, Contender and Youth Contender. The Goa event, held from February 27 to March 5, 2023, was of the Star Contender category, hosted and brought to India by the tireless efforts of Stupa Sports Analytics. Thank you, Stupa. If you have not already, please do check out their app; it offers great match insights and analytics, for your own practice sessions as well. The event boasted a star-studded lineup featuring Fan Zhendong, Tomokazu Harimoto, Truls Moregard, Patrick Franziska on the men’s side and Wang Yidi, Hina Hayata, Ying Han, Adriana Diaz on the women’s end. Sadly, Ma Long, Wang Chuqin, Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng withdrew, which would have added more star power to the starry event. The Indian challenge was spearheaded by legends Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra. Although the Indians had a lacklustre, forgettable performance, Manika Batra showed some spark to defeat Adriana Diaz, before succumbing in the subsequent round. As expected, the Chinese players took home the silverware in the singles event (Liang Jingkun and Wang Yidi), while the Koreans and Japanese walked back happily with the doubles victory.
I purchased the VIP level tickets for quarterfinals and semifinals from bookmyshow. Why not the finals, you may ask? Well, I am a Physics PhD student at IIT Kanpur, which sadly has a silly attendance policy and provides limited number of holidays. Being on the college team myself, I utilise those holidays for participating in tournaments. Also, travelling from Kanpur to Goa seems to take aeons! So, I had to keep a day in backup for travel :(! While at the event, I met Ms Madhu Pandey, one of the senior volunteers. She is a fantastic trailblazing umpire from India in her own right (check out her interview here). She was kind enough to provide me access to the stadium a day earlier, to watch the poster girl of Indian table tennis, Manika Batra live in action. And also to some lip-smacking food. Hope to meet you again soon, ma’am.
Sports teaches us important life lessons, apart from staying fit and healthy. Take for example, the first match played by world rank 1, Fan Zhendong (after receiving a Bye in the first round) against the then-rank 193 (and still outside the top 100), the left-handed Cho Daeseong. Fan was leading 2-0, with a match point at 10-9 in the third game. Cho staged a herculean comeback to take the match 3-2. Do watch the match highlights here. Never give up; keep fighting till the end. Fan swallowed the disappointment to emerge victorious in the next tournament, the prestigious Singapore Smash, where the Chinese clean swept all the singles and doubles, men’s and women’s events. Bounce back stronger from failure. During the practice sessions, I noticed some interesting characteristics. The players would definitely train under the watchful eyes of their coaches and practice with fellow teammates, but they would also hit a few balls with players from other countries. Felix Lebrun did an entire warmup session with the rising Indian paddler Manav Thakkar, just before his match was scheduled. It is a competitive world, but it is imperative for humanity to have camaraderie and friendship, to grow together.
The WTT Star Contender, Goa, was a massive first foray made by India. There is some scope of improvement in the fan engagement section, and I hope Stupa is taking notes and actively working towards making the subsequent WTT events an even bigger success in India. The on-court interview was conducted somewhat awkwardly. The players were facing away from the VIP box. The same was the case with the player entry as well. For someone who is paying a premium to get the best possible view of their favourite players, this is not great news. Further, there could be some small collectible souvenirs, like autographed balls. It would be nice to have a mascot, and get one’s hands on a stuffed toy of the same.
Goodbye Goa. Now, back to work: research in experimental Quantum Optics.
PS: While the match replays and highlights are available on the WTT YouTube channel, I have some exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the practice sessions for you. If anyone knows about some sports photography or content writing internship/volunteering opportunities, do inform me.
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