Surat: Yashaswini Ghorpade does not celebrate much during a table tennis match. Even a win will see a fist pump or two at best. She explains that her demeanour during a match is more by design.
“I don’t want the heart rate to go up,” she tells HT. “I have to keep the excitement in check so I can stay focused.”
At the 86th Senior National Table Tennis Championships in Surat, Ghorpade has remained stoic. But her game has certainly caused a buzz of excitement at the Pandit Dindayal Upadhyay Indoor Stadium.
Last year, the 20-year-old from Bengaluru made the transition from the juniors and broke into the top 100 in rankings as well. “The transition to the seniors was quite smooth,” she says. “I didn’t really have any expectations (of entering the world’s top 100) since it was my first year.”
The world No.88 carries the confidence of an elite player. From the backhand, which she considers her strength, Ghorpade uses the long-pimple rubber to create openings before finishing a point with a strong forehand. She is also quick on her feet and has a sturdy defence that she turns into attack.
“She is a very tactical player and studies the opponent during the game,” explains Arup Basak, the former India coach who currently trains her Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) team.
“She is a patient player and once she has recognised the opponent’s weakness, she starts to exploit it. The only thing she lacks at the moment is experience, which will come as she plays.”
Ghorpade has taken a few meaningful strides in the past year though. She reached the final of the WTT Feeder event in Doha along with a quarter-final finish at the WTT Contender in Lagos, Nigeria. However, there is still plenty of work to be done.
“I feel that mentally I have to be stronger (to succeed) in the seniors,” she says. “The focus cannot go in any point, it has to be there throughout the match. In crucial points, the seniors change the variations, patterns and strategies. You have to be alert and think on your feet.
“It was tough at the start, but I’m getting there.”
She’s putting in the time as and when possible. Even in Surat, she spends a good amount of time in practice, before and after matches. This comes from a player who had taken up the sport to quell her “naughtiness and laziness”.
As a six-year-old, she was into singing, but had to quit when her teacher moved cities.
“I used to be the kid that played on the streets a lot, watched a lot of television and was just very naughty and lazy,” she says. “My parents wanted me to focus on something physical.”
By the time she was eight, she was enrolled in the table tennis academy in her school.
“For the first few months, the coach asked me to do wall practice. It was really boring. But then when I was shifted to the table, it was fun,” adds Ghorpade, who decided to pursue the sport as a profession when she won the U-15 nationals.
The second-year student at the Jain University is putting in the hard yards, but she insists she is not letting table tennis consume her.
“I have understood that table tennis is not everything,” she says. “It’s a part of me, it’s my career, but I have other things as well. So, I make sure I go sight-seeing whenever I’m at a new place.”
She holds particularly fond memories of visiting the Christ the Redeemer statue during a tournament in Rio de Janeiro. At the table, she has come far, but is looking for better moments.
RBI, TN win doubles
Reserve Bank of India’s Sreeja Akula and Diya Chitale won the women doubles at the 86th Senior National Championships after a 12-14, 11-4, 11-4, 11-13, 11-4 win over Haryana’s Suhana Saini and Prithoki Chakraborti.
Tamil Nadu’s PB Abhinandh and Suresh Raj Preyesh beat West Bengal’s Sourav Saha and Aniket Sen Choudhury 12-10, 4-11, 11-6, 11-7 for the men’s doubles title.
