Upbeat Indian paddlers leave for Tokyo world meet

After an "intensive" camp for a fortnight in Patiala, a 10-member Indian table tennis team, comprising five men and an equal number of women, is upbeat about its performance at the World Championships to be held between April 28 and May 5 in Tokyo.
The men's team comprises A Sharath Kamal, Anthony Amalraj, Soumyajit Ghosh, Harmeet Desai and national champion Sanil Shetty, while K. Shamini, Madhurika Patkar, Manika Batra, Pooja Sahasrabudhe and national champion Ankita Das form the women's squad.
They will be accompanied by foreign coach Peter Engel and national coach Bhawani Mukherjee.
The team, sans Sharath Kamal, will leave for Japan today evening from here. Sharath Kamal will join the squad at Tokyo from Germany.

Talking on the preparations for the worlds, Engel said that the teams have a "very good" chance of putting up a better show this time around.
"Both teams had finished at 27 in the last worlds (in 2012) in Germany and I am sure they will do still better at Tokyo," said Engel, now a resident of Barcelona in Spain.

The coach spoke highly of the "young team" with the experienced Sharath Kamal taking charge.
"I am really impressed with the way the boys, particularly Soumyajit Ghosh and Amalraj, have been preparing at the camp. Even Harmeet and Sanil have been in great form. I want them to translate this form into winning matches at the Japanese capital. I have watched Sharath in recent times and, believe me, he is in a great shape," added Engel.

As for the girls, he said there was a great "team spirit" among them, adding he had been working on their movements on the court and at the table.