Why 'robots' can help sustainable development of Indian Table Tennis at grassroots levels

On a whole, the game has got recognition, the credit for which goes to the bunch of talents that have risen up to the occasion against all odds. If Gnansekaran Sathiyan’s constant wrath of higher-ranked players points at the upward trajectory of Indian players, the medal wins at the 2018 Asian Games justifies that Indians are no pushovers at the top level. This has created hope, to say the least, and what better stage to put your country on the world maps than the Olympics, even though expecting a medal would be foolish. As things stand, the Tokyo Olympics has been pushed back by a year, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, with preparations largely stalled in India.

We are quite aware of the situation on our hands, with sports activities massively affected by the pandemic situation while the athletes are stranded at home. The lack of practice, an attempt to kill boredom, and keep themselves in shape during the lockdown, the athletes have taken to extreme methods which include sparring with a dummy, swimming inside an irrigation tank, and shooting through electronic targets. The paddlers on the other hand, only the elite ones, took resort to train with ‘robots’. This was nothing new to be precise, as robots have been in fashion, even though you cannot spot in every academy you come across. Unlike other make-shift arrangements I’ve mentioned, a robot can actually help a player improve his technique, skills and reflexes.

"It can replicate a lot of ideas and it can put a short and a long topspin in the same exercise. So I think it's one of the most advanced robots in the world and of course, it can never be compared to a human. A human can see your body and then give the ball accordingly but I feel this robot is as close to a human as it can be," added the world no. 30.

But, using them at the grassroots level can actually help the players improve their skills, techniques, and reflexes immensely. With the sport getting a push and money being pumped into the system, we can expect academies to introduce robots at intermediate levels. Gnansekaran Sathiyan, during an exclusive chat with SportsCafe, throws light on how robots can be used at various levels to bring about an improvement in the overall game, even though he points out that there’s no replacement to sparring with humans.

To be honest, India still has a long way to go and as cliched it might sound, grassroots development will largely define where India stands in the next few years. India have been producing top-notch players in the past decade, but time has come to adopt advanced methods of training and extract the best possible talents from the circuit at the same time. It might not be correct to say that robots are the solution for a great future, but we can definitely have a better fleet than the predecessors that can take the nation to heights never achieved before.