Winning senior championship speaks volume of 14 year old Preyesh's talent: Table Tennis coach Raman

In Tamil Nadu Table Tennis state sub-junior championship, S. Preyesh Raj has been showcasing some terrific performances in various age group levels over the past few years. The 14 year old on Sunday went a step forward and defeated his senior counterpart Ananth 4-2 in the men’s section to be crowned the Tamil Nadu state champion.

The prodigiously talented youngster has been training under the watchful eyes of the well-known coach, S. Raman for the past two years.

Talking to The Bridge about his ward’s first senior title, Raman said, “It comes as a huge win. You come across players with huge experience and much more physically stronger players in the senior circuit. To be able to match them despite being just a kid, it speaks volumes of Preyesh’s talent, his versatility and his ability to understand the sport. In that sense this is a great win.”

Raman added that it is the first time in his career that he had seen a junior player dominating the senior circuit like Preyesh did.

“In my knowledge in my 35-40 years, I don’t think I have seen a junior player winning the senior state championship and it’s not that we are a weak state in Table Tennis. We have a strong Table Tennis presence in our state.”

Thanks to the pandemic, Preyesh had the chance to practice his trade with one of India’s top players and world number 32, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran.

“During the first month of the lockdown I couldn’t train him at all. But later I started training him online bit by bit. As soon as things started opening up Preyesh started to come down to the academy to train and this gave him a chance to train alongside Sathiyan,” the coach said.

The coach was quick to point out that though practicing with Preyesh was a step down for the 27 year old Indian star, Sathiyan did it whole heartedly and it in turn helped improve Preyesh’s game.

“Of course playing with Sathiyan helped him improve his game. Getting tips to improve your game from a world class player like Sathiyan was a huge positive for Preyesh and that somehow went a long way in him winning the state championship,” he said.

The coach admitted that he never had any doubts about the youngster’s talent and that he is destined to achieve greater things if he remains focused.

“I have no doubts about his talent and he is surely going to be the one to watch out for from the Tamil Nadu table tennis circuit,” Raman beamed proudly.