All is not well in the Rio-bound Indian table tennis camp as country's top player Soumyajit Ghosh's decision to give walkover at a domestic event after refusing to play with a certain kind of ball has left chief national coach Bhawani Mukherjee and TTFI top brass fuming
Soumyajit Ghosh
New Delhi: All is not well in the Rio-bound Indian table tennis camp as country's top player Soumyajit Ghosh's decision to give walkover at a domestic event after refusing to play with a certain kind of ball has left chief national coach Bhawani Mukherjee and TTFI top brass fuming.
Soumyajit Ghosh
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Ghosh is currently India's highest ranked player at World No 68. The incident happened yesterday at a TT championship in Jaipur, where Ghosh turned up for his employers Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) and gave a walk-over in the individual event after playing the team event.
The reason being the use of GKI balls and not the DHS balls that will be used in Rio.
Loss of match practice
However, veteran Sharath Kamal due to play his third Olympics had no problems with the ball. This left the TTFI bigwigs and national coach Mukherjee angry as it means of loss crucial match practice ahead of team's departure to Rio in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
"I am not happy at all with Ghosh's attitude. When a big player like Sharath has no problem in playing, he should also be playing with Rio just round the corner. Anyway the ball issue is not a big one as different balls are used all around the world and you need to adjust to the bounce as professionals," Mukherjee said.
Ghosh, in his defence, said , "I did play with the GKI ball in the team event but then thought it might affect my rhythm later on.
"I did not want to take a chance ahead of the Olympics. I have been practising with DHS balls for the last three months. There is nothing more to it," Ghosh said.