Best performance by Indian paddlers in Olympics: Mopkar

Nilesh Deshpande

Nagpur, July 26

It is the dream of every sportsperson or official to represent the country in the Olympics, the biggest global sports event in the world. City's international table tennis referee Mangesh Mopkar is fortunate enough to get this opportunity.

While sharing his experience from Tokyo he said so far the Indian table tennis players have produced their best performance in the overall Olympics.

Mopkar who earlier has officiated several national and international tournaments said, “Young Manika Batra and star Indian player Achanta Sharath Kamal qualifying for the third round itself is a great achievement for them. Although Manika Batra bowed out with third-round loss to Austria's Polcanova, she displayed great character by stunning world number 32 on Sunday in the second round. However, in the fourth round she lot could not able to repeat her performance against 10th seeded Sofia Polcanova. This is not the first time that Batra clashed against Polcanova. In the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) in 2018 Batra had shocked the then World No10”. Mopkar said women's challenge have come to an end with the loss of Sutirtha Mukhejee in the second round earlier in the day.

Mopkar said now only Sharath Kamal has kept the Indian hopes alive but on Tuesday he will take on defending champion Ma Long from China. “ It will be very tough for the Indian paddler to face the defending champion. Let's see what happens.”

Mopkar said he had a talk with the Indian players and they are happy with the facilities here. " Just in the morning I had a talk with Sharath and he expressed satisfaction over facilities and covid protocols here". Speaking about the atmosphere in the Olympic village, Mopkar said, “ The atmosphere in the game village and inside the stadiums is not much energetic as the crowd is not allowed to witness the matches. Due to Covid scare the organisers have banned the crowd. Therefore we are missing usual cheering and shouting over players performance from them in the game village. There are not much people on the roads. But as far as my maiden Olympic experience is concerned it is good. As soon as entered the playing arena I had the feeling that my dream has been fulfilled”.Mopkar will actually officiating the matches from Tuesday onwards till the final on August 6. “ On first two days I was engaged in some other works but nor from tomorrow I will be actually officiating the matches till the end and will leave for India on August 9”, he said and signed off.