At the finals of the recently concluded Delhi state ranking table tennis tournament,the players competed in front of a giant wall-mounted poster that displayed Delhis table tennis talent on either side were a boy and girl,both in their early teens,along with a list of their achievements. There was Olympian Neha Aggarwal too,but she too has only just crossed her teens. Delhi players do quite well at in age group competitions. We have always been among the top-five in the country in these categories. Currently,Utkarsh Gupta is the number one player in the sub-junior boys while Manika Batra is ranked second among girls in the juniors (U-17). But unfortunately,we rarely see talented players continue performing at the same level in higher categories. Only Neha has managed that, admits Vipin Mehra,joint secretary of the Delhi Table Tennis Association (DTTA). A senior coach who did not wish to be named says that many players have no desire to continue playing the game competitively and only use the sport to get into a college of their choice under the sports quota. He,however,refuses to blame the players themselves. The prize money for winners is only a couple of thousand rupees in many tournaments. Unless you are a Sharath Kamal,where is the incentive to continue playing? We need a few more players like Neha so that there can be some momentum for the sport in Delhi, he says,citing the state ranking tournament as an example. Pranshu Gupta,who won the mens singles at the tournament,agrees. Last year,he cut down on his table tennis commitments to concentrate on his studies. The board exams were coming up and I had to prioritise, he explains. While Pranshu did get over 90 per cent in his exams,he admits he needed table tennis to get admission to a course of his choice at St Stephens,under the sports quota. While he plans to continue with the sport in the near future,Pranshu is uncertain on whether he wants to take it up as a career. If I were to take up sports as my career option,I need to devote myself entirely to it. I will be playing more tournaments this year but continuing table tennis full time is a decision I will take only after a great deal of thought.
