Sharath, Manika to lead Indian table tennis team at 2024 Paris Olympics

Indian number one women's paddler Manika Batra and Veteran paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal lead the Indian men's and women's squads respectively at the Paris Olympic Games.

This will be the debut for the Indian team in the team events.

Table Tennis Federation of India announced the squad on Thursday after the senior selection committee picked a six-member squad (three in each section) as per the Olympics norms, besides naming the individuals who would compete in the singles events.

Sharath, Harmeet Desai, and Manav Thakkar will form the three-member men's team, while Manika, Sreeja Akula, and Archana Kamath will be squad members in the women's category.

G Sathiyan and Ayhika Mukherjee will complete the squad as alternate players and injury substitutes.

In the men's singles, Sharath and Harmeet will compete and it will be Manika and Sreeja in the women's event.

The decision was taken based on the latest world rankings.

Since the selection of the squads and the individuals were as per the already pronounced TTFI criteria, three players "got selected themselves" because of their consistent performances over time and world rankings.

In the men's team, the three players picked themselves with Sharath being undisputed number one with world rank 40 while Harmeet (world number 63) and Manav (world number 62) became the other players.

However, there was a debate over the third player for the women's squad. After Manika and Sreeja Akula walked in on the back of their higher world rankings (top 50), Archana Kamath (103) made it to the team as the third player.

The Bengaluru paddler edged out Ayhika Mukherjee (133) on several counts, including her ranking.

Indian Table Tennis Team for the 2024 Paris Olympics

Men: A. Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, and Manav Thakkar; Alternate Player: G. Sathiyan.

Women: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, and Archana Kamath; Alternate Player: Ayhika Mukherjee.