Table Tennis
Table Tennis: 10 things you should know about Sutirtha Mukherjee
Indian sports fans should know about Sutritha Mukherjee, one of the future stars of Indian table tennis, who has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
Sutirtha Mukherjee (Source: Twitter/@uMumba)
Paddler Sutirtha Mukherjee had made headlines this past week for securing a place in the Tokyo Olympics. Her table tennis career has had major highs and lows in a short span of time but despite all the odds, she has done extremely well to establish herself in the Indian team. We take a look at ten things that Indian sports fans should know about Sutritha Mukherjee, one of the future stars of Indian table tennis.
Background
Sutirtha Mukherjee was born on 10tOctober 1995 and hails from the municipality of Naihati in Kolkata. She took up table tennis for two primary reasons. One was out of interest and the other was due to her wish to take up a regular sport and activity due to her weight issues as a child.
Ranking
Sutirtha was ranked 502, two years ago. In September last year, she reached a career-high ranking of 95 after jumping 14 spots. By doing this, she broke into the top 100 rankings for the first time ever. In India, she is currently ranked no. 2 behind the other top Indian paddler, Manika Batra but has seen a steady rise in her stature and rankings since last year.
Tournaments Participated In
Sutirtha Mukherjee's first major tournament was in 2013 when she took part in the Women's Junior World Championships. She lost out in the first round of both the singles and doubles event. Thereafter she had taken part in the Women's Asian Championships, Women's Australian Open and the Korean Open among others in subsequent years.
Controversy
Back in 2016, she was handed a two-year ban by the Table Tennis Federation of India for giving false age records. The matter was investigated by the sports unit of the CBI and Sutritha was banned along with Aishwarya Deb, Priyadarshini Das and Ayhika Mukherjee. They were also stripped off their previous titles as a result of this.
Coach
Sutirtha Mukherjee is coached by former Arjuna Award winner Soumyadeep Roy. He has been praised by the Indian table tennis contingent for his consistent efforts at improving their game over the past few years and has been instrumental in the success of players like Soumyajit Ghosh. He has a vast experience in coaching with a brief stint in China helping him evolve the coaching dimensions of Indian players.
Playing Style
She is regarded as an extremely attacking player and is a right-handed paddler with her favourite shot being the backhand smash.
Ultimate Table Tennis Record
In the Ultimate Table Tennis event, she represented U Mumba and won all the six matches that she played with four golden points, 17 super serves. She beat major competitors like Petrissa Solje as well.
Accolades
Sutirtha was a part of the Gold Medal winning team at the 2018 edition of the Commonwealth Games
Sutirtha Mukherjee won the 2017 and 2020 National Championships and was a part of the historic Gold Medal winning team at the 2018 edition of the Commonwealth Games. She also lost out on a bronze medal in the women's doubles event in a closely contested match against Malaysia.
Olympic Qualification
The Asian Olympic qualifiers were one of the last opportunities to qualify for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Sutirtha managed a 4-2 victory over the favoured Manika Batra to secure a place in her first-ever Olympics. She received congratulatory messages from Kiren Rijiju and several notable athletes across the country.
Future
Having already qualified for the Olympics at the age of 25, Sutirtha Mukherjee will be looking to take top honours in the National women's ranking by securing the first rank in the near future. She has been victorious at major tournaments like the Commonwealth Games in the past few years and one can hope to see her maintaining and building on this consistency especially at the upcoming Olympics and in the long career that lies ahead of her.
