Announcing his retirement, India’s most decorated table tennis player Sharath Kamal, a part of the ITTF task force, has opened doors for youngsters to follow his footsteps.
The 42-year-old, now, is focused towards playing a bigger role as an administrator or high performance director.
“Actually, I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Many times, I have joked that I have passed the retirement age to announce my retirement! But, I think it was very, very emotional. I am very excited about the next half of my career. I have contributed a lot as a player and I feel now I can contribute equally as an administrator or/and as a High Performance Director,” Sharath told The Hindu here on Wednesday on the sidelines of the press conference of the WTT Star Contender tournament.
The Tokyo 2020 match against double Olympic medalist Ma Long, where he took a set off the Chinese paddler, is etched in his mind as the best clash of his storied career.
“Personally for me, I had two really good outings. One was at the Olympic Games when I played Ma Long, the Olympic champion back then. That was one of the finest matches that I have ever played. And for me the biggest thing that changed the face of Indian table tennis, I would say is the Asian Games medal in 2018. When for the first time in 60 years, Indian table tennis got a medal at the Asian Games, especially after beating former world champions Japan in the quarterfinals,” he said.
He, however, regrets not winning an Olympic medal. But remains optimistic of creating Olympic medalists from the country.
“Nurturing the younger talents and hopefully looking at winning Olympic medals in the years to come will be one of my main objectives,” he said.
“With the help of the State Government and the Central government, I would like to put in place a structure and system into the sport and try and put table tennis in the world map and help the country win an Olympic medal,” he added.
Kamal will be retiring in front of his homecrowd in Chennai.
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