Busan: Despite losing their pre-quarterfinal matches at the ITTF World Table Tennis Team Championships in Busan on Wednesday, both the Indian men’s and women’s teams will qualify for the Olympics for the first time by taking the last world ranking spot.
It’s the first time that India will qualify for the team event of an Olympics since the event was included at the Beijing 2008 Games. While the official list of team rankings will come out on March 4, as per calculations, both teams have cut Paris.
The losses dented India’s chances of securing team quotas for the 2024 Paris Olympics from the tournament. Advancing to the last eight would have seen them obtain automatic berths in the Summer Games.
The men’s team, led by 10-time national champion Sharath Kamal, were blanked 3-0 by a much better team in hosts Korea. The women put up a brave fight but lost 1-3 to the higher-ranked Chinese Taipei, which had the likes of World No.10 Cheng I-Ching and World No.41 Szu-Yu Chen.
While among the women, Manika Batra and Sreeja would’ve qualified as per rankings, the men would hugely benefit from this. While the Table Tennis Federation of India may take the final call, it’s going to be an interesting battle among World No.67 Harmeet Desai, veteran Sharath, Sathiyan and Manav Thakkar for the two spots. Sathiyan should also qualify for the mixed doubles event, partnering with Manika Batra.
The 41-year-old Sharath, who has represented India at four Olympic Games, told The Indian Express recently that it would be his dream to play in a team event at the Olympics.
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