Confidence renewed, Yashaswini Ghorpade aims to scale greater heights

At the start of this year, Yashaswini Ghorpade felt stuck. For the last few months, her results felt stagnant. She dropped from No 2 in the women’s singles table tennis national rankings to No 8.

A paddler who predominantly thrives on her backhand, she was working on getting her forehand receives and attacks up at the same level. It eventually ended up in causing more confusion in her natural gameplay, leaving her confidence at an all-time low.

But come the 87th Senior National Table Tennis Championships in Indore last month, Ghorpade put all the inhibitions behind her to be crowned the national champion for the first time in her budding career.

She beat Olympian Sreeja Akula in the quarter-finals, the young Suhana Saini in the semi-finals, and staved off a stiff challenge from the teenaged Syndrela Das to lift her maiden title.

“I had a two-week training camp in Bengaluru which helped,” said Ghorpade in a conversation with The Bridge.

That camp with long-time coach Anshuman Roy proved to be a boon for Ghorpade. The two went back to the basics, looking to find some consistency in the way she was playing. They sprinkled some variations on top of it and Ghorpade emerged with renewed confidence.

Roy, on his birthday, sat on the coaching chair and let out the first roar as her ward clinched the national title.

“Normally, I travel a lot for competitions and he [Roy] can’t travel with me,” said Ghorpade.

“So that time we got to practice with each other actually made the difference,” she added.

Ghorpade, 21, started in the sport nearly 14 years ago. She was enrolled into an academy by parents, who were worried about a child addicted to television and used to be sick more often than not.

Roy, who was already an established name in the Karnataka state team, used to train at the same place and took her under her wings right from the start.

Since her win at the national championships, Ghorpade has grown in confidence. Last week she finished runners-up in women’s singles and women’s doubles at the WTT Feeder in Cappadocia, Turkey whilst also winning the mixed doubles title alongside veteran Harmeet Desai.

“There were little difficulties in getting adjusted to the conditions as it was very high above the sea level,” said Ghorpade.

“The ball was travelling very fast and the bounce was uneven, but I got to practice for two days since I had bye in the opening rounds. That helped,” she further noted.

Ghorpade is currently in Sheffield, where the Indian team is huddled up in a camp ahead of the 2026 ITTF World Team Championships, which starts next week.

She is the No 2 women’s singles paddler in the team behind the experienced Manika Batra and will have a crucial role to play as India hopes to foray deep into the tournament.

“We also had a camp in Bengaluru a while earlier before we reached Sheffield on Wednesday,” said Ghorpade after the team’s first training session in the city.

“The team environment is good and we’ve had good bonding sessions with the teammates and coaches. We are looking forward to giving our best and enjoying the game,” she added.