Having given doubles a backseat of late, India’s leading male paddler Sharath Kamal said he will also focus on training for it over the next couple of months, with doubles being “the most important rubber” in team events at the Paris Olympics.
Team events at the Games, for which Indian men and women paddlers have qualified for the first time, comprise one doubles and four singles contests. The Indian men’s team of Sharath, Harmeet Desai and Manav Thakkar doesn’t have an obvious doubles pairing. Sharath’s recent men’s doubles partnership has been with G Sathiyan, with whom Harmeet too largely paired up for the team events at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Sathiyan is named as a reserve for Paris. Young Manav has formed a fairly successful partnership with Manush Shah — he hasn’t been picked for Paris — on the WTT circuit.
Sharath himself hasn’t played a lot of doubles over the last year. He played just one doubles tie in the six team matches at the 2022 CWG, where he added a men’s doubles silver with Sathiyan and mixed doubles gold with Sreeja Akula. At last year’s Asian Games in which Sharath chose to stay away from mixed doubles, he and Sathiyan crashed out in the men’s doubles Round of 16. The duo has barely played together since.
Sharath, gearing up for his fifth Olympics at 41, though has doubles back on his mind for Paris, where he will also compete in the singles event.
“Doubles is the most important rubber, I would say, in the team event, because you start with it. Once you have a head start there, you probably have a good chance to turn the match in your favour,” Sharath said on Friday in a virtual interaction organised by SAI, IOA and TTFI.
“Of course, I am looking at training for doubles also. Doubles is something I do well and I’m quite good at. We are looking at multiple options — myself and Harmeet, Harmeet and Manav, myself and Manav. We’ll have to see which player at that point in time will be in good shape for singles, and who pairs up well for doubles. That is what our primary focus will be in the next training camp,” he added.
That 10-day camp will begin next week in Bengaluru, where Massimo Costantini, who is back as the national coach, will take charge. Sharath said the Italian’s inputs in shaping up the doubles combination will be key.
“His role will be pretty much focused on the team and doubles. That’s where we will need his support,” he said.
“Post that (Bengaluru camp) we will have another training camp in July; most probably in Germany where we’ll be playing in Olympic conditions — same table, balls, similar weather and quite close to the French border. We hope we’ll be able to figure out the doubles part by then,” Sharath added.
