New Delhi [India], May 16 : The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) announced the national squad for the Paris Olympics 2024 on Thursday, with Commonwealth Games champion and veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra set to lead a six-member strong side.
Indian players will be competing in singles and team events at the Paris Olympics, starting from July 26 to August 11, as per Olympics.com.
G Sathiyan, the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games medalist, has been named as a reserve player.
The 41-year-old Kamal will be making his fifth and final appearance at the multi-sport extravaganza while for Manika, it will be his third straight Olympics.
All of these six players were selected on the basis of their world rankings, with Sharath Kamal, India's top-ranked paddler at world number 40, Manav Thakkar and Harmeet Desai being his closest rivals at number 62 and 63. These three will form the men's team.
Manika, who climbed a career-high of world number 24 just last week following a historic quarterfinal run at Saudi Smash last week, will form the women's team along with 41st-ranked Sreeja Akula and world number 103 Archana Kamath.
For the women's team, Ayhika Mukherjee will be the reserve player. Both Sathiyan and Ayhika will be going to Paris but would not stay at Games Village and their services will be called upon in case of injuries.
Paris 2024 will be the first time ever India will field players for team events. Both men's and women's team competitions were introduced in the Olympics back in the Beijing 2008 edition.
Indian men's and women's team attained their Paris 2024 quotas in March on the basis of world rankings. Along with that, India secured two quotas each in men's and women's singles competition.
In the singles competition, Sharath Kamal and Harmeet Desai will be playing for men while Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula will be playing in the women's singles event.
Former table tennis player Massimo Costantini of Italy was also present as a special invitee for the selections and will be taking over as coach of the team from next week.
*INDIAN TABLE TENNIS SQUAD FOR PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS
-Men's team: Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, and Manav Thakkar; Reserve player: G. Sathiyan
-Men's singles: Sharath Kamal and Harmeet Desai
-Women's team: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, and Archana Kamath; Reserve player: Ayhika Mukherjee
-Women's singles: Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula.
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