Arjuna Awardee Table Tennis Champion Sathiyan Gnanasekaran

Arjuna Awardee Table Tennis Champion Sathiyan Gnanasekaran

India’s highest-ranked player Sathiyan Gnanasekaran has set an example of perfectly balancing academics and sports career together. A software engineer degree and the first Indian to get into Top-25 in the World proves his versatility. The Arjuna awardee speaks to Ashish Phadnis about his journey and how the lessons from life reflected into his game. Excerpts.

Tell us about your childhood. What made you choose table tennis as a sport?

When I was a kid, I was quite hyperactive. So, to channelise my energy, my mother Malarkodi wanted to put me into some physical activity and she chose table tennis. It was a little surprise as no one in our family is into sports. All of them are excellent in academics. I remember, I had scored 90 per cent in the 12th exam and it was the lowest score in our family.
My table tennis training started back in 1998 when I was just five. My coach was a famous player V Chandrashekar and it was a lovely coincidence, as it was close to our home. So, my mother preferred that academy rather than going somewhere else. Yet, it was quite a burden on her to pick me from school and then drop to the academy. That was a challenging period and a lot of people helped us. Even my neighbours voluntarily come forward to pick me up from the academy.

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