‘No system in the country’

KOLKATA: There is a “complete lack of system” in Indian sports, says Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, the wiry table tennis player from Chennai who beat higher-ranked opponents

KOLKATA: There is a “complete lack of system” in Indian sports, says Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, the wiry table tennis player from Chennai who beat higher-ranked opponents to win the Belgium Open last month.

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“There is a complete lack of system in India. In Chennai, I was trying to emulate this (facilities in Germany). I got (Subramaniam) Raman Sir as coach. He was my personal coach for three years and then he had an academy this year,” Sathiyan told IANS in an interview from Germany where he plays for the lower rung Bundesliga side TSG Kaiserslautern.

“In India, you don’t have a centre to train. Like (Soumyajit) Ghosh and me, we train separately. In Germany, you have hundreds of such centres,” said Sathiyan.

Sathiyan, ranked 113th, became the first Indian to win an ITTF event since Achanta Sharath Kamal in 2012 when he claimed the Belgium Open crown.