Indians look to shine at the WTT Contenders Lagos 2024

The WTT Contender Lagos is scheduled to start on the 19th of this month.

The full squad of the Indian Olympics Table Tennis team will be taking part in the event with some additional back-ups.

Here’s a list of Indians taking part in the event:-

Men’s Single: Achanta Sharath Kamal, Manav Thakkar, Harmeet Desai, Sathiyan Gnanasekharan, Manush Shah, Akash Pal.

Women’s Single: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Yashaswini Ghorpade, Archana Kamath, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Ayihka Mukherjee, Diya Parag.

Men’s Doubles: Harmeet Desai-Manav Thakkar, Manush Shah-Akash Pal, Sathiyan Gnanasekharan-Achanta Sharath Kamal.

Women’s Doubles: Sutirtha Mukherjee-Ayihka Mukherjee, Sreeja Akula-Archana Kamath, Yashaswini Ghorpade-Diya Parag.

Mixed Doubles: Manav Thakkar-Archana Kamath, Manush Shah-Diya Parag, Harmeet Desai-Yashaswini Ghorpade, Sathiyan-Sreeja Akula.

With several big names and a series of Chinese and Japanese missing the tournament puts the Indians ahead in the seedings.

The Doubles pair of Harmeet-Manav and Sutirtha-Ayihka are seeded number 1 in their respective categories.

Manika Batra is seeded 2nd to Shin Yubin of South Korea and Manika is subsequently followed by Sreeja Akula as the 3rd seed of the Women’s single.

The veteran paddler Sharath Kamal is seeded 5th as the highest Indian athlete for the Men’s single event.

Coach's Corner

Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) has reappointed the Indian team's coach Massimo Costantini for his third stint with the Indian side.

In Massimo's first stint, India won a then-record five medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. He came back to help India win an unprecedented two medals at the 2018 Asian Games, ending a 60-year drought.

Costantini has expressed," We have done well in the previous two tenures. Time will tell if we can do even better. So even better means to aspire to something big in the Olympics. And that is the biggest motivation".

With only a few events left before the Olympics, Lagos will be a great testing and trial ground for the Indian Olympic-bound team.