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The solicitude for today’s kids is not availing their exposure to outdoor activities in times when electronic games are in abundance among youth. Only those who have had late encounters with technology, especially after secondary school, will treasure the moments spent on playgrounds and turf.
Here’s a story about a person who was deprived of playing outdoor sports due to serious health complications, but one particular sport changed the course of his life.
Indian Table Tennis paddler Sanil Shetty was born as a premature child with a hole in his heart and suffered from breathing issues and lack of crawling movement apart from being very fat. Doctors had announced that it would be difficult for the infant to survive for less than a year.
Late father Shankar Shetty and mother Bharathi Shetty kept looking for promising solutions with the hope of putting their second son’s life out of danger. They found an unexpected ally in homeopathy and the results were eventually fruitful.
But the family was not ready to let their guard down and as a consequence, Sanil was not allowed to go down and play with other kids. A maid would also accompany him to school as breathing issues made it difficult to climb the steps.
Speaking to Sportskeeda in an exclusive interview on how it felt to be confined to four walls, Sanil said:
“I was very restricted at home, like I was not allowed to meet anyone, not allowed to go down to play with kids. That’s the age when you go down and gel up with other kids. So I used to just look up from the window.”
He added:
“But it was for my betterment because my parents were very possessive like I was very delicate at that time. They didn’t want me to go down and get into some problem. But they've always got an alternative. For example, when I used to see kids playing cricket, my parents would get a cricket set and they used to play with me.”
To keep their son engaged in some kind of activity, the parents put him into sketching and dancing, but a young Sanil felt the movement was limited from the doors of the home to the ones of school and vice versa.
Following brother's footsteps in the sport
Sanil would keenly observe elder brother Sachin Shetty play table tennis and one day the latter brought a huge trophy home after winning a tournament.
That was the particular moment when the younger brother thought of joining his brother in playing the sport. There was a bit of reluctance from the parents, keeping the complications in mind, but Sachin was the one to convince them.
Sachin took his brother to his own coach, Deepak Mani, who was impressed after seeing the young boy bounce and balance the ball along with tapping it on the table on the first day.
“I did it very nicely, so sir saw something in me and told my brother that he (Sanil) has some talent,” Sanil said.
Sanil’s enticing tricks paved the way for an unexpected journey with a game of light ball and a thick bat. While pointing out the key difference in selecting Table Tennis over some popular team sports at a young age, Sanil explained:
“The outdoor sports won’t be suitable for my health conditions. So better I take a sport which is very safe. In Table Tennis, the ball won’t hurt you. When you start playing it's a simple sport. If you see some unknown people come and play for the first time how they feel. It’s easy.”
He added:
“In cricket, you are scared that the ball might hurt you and in football, you often get injured. So keeping all these (things) in mind, I thought I chose Table Tennis because my father used to play for the bank.”
The player was also intrigued by the field of architecture during his school days but winning the U-14 National Championship pulled his attention to the sport and thereafter only rigorous training followed the course.
Influence and struggles in opting Table Tennis for Sanil Shetty
Before entering the pool of nationals, Sanil was influenced by the aura of former international table tennis player Chetan Baboor. Watching Chetan outsmart his opponents from the live court induced an aspiring player to contribute to Indian Table Tennis.
Apart from Chetan, Indian veteran paddler Sharath Kamal is the person Sanil looks up to and the Tamil Nadu star’s longevity with the game is something he wants to follow.
Going after racket sports in India, where popularity is in development mode and expenses for equipment, coaching, diet and tours are challenging to anything. For a middle-class family to take care of heavy expenses like purchasing rubbers is somewhat stressful.
In an interview with Scroll.in in 2017, Sachin Shetty had mentioned that he gave up the dream of a table tennis career to allow his brother to march ahead as the income their father would earn as a banker wasn’t sufficient to allow two kids to continue with the game. It was Sachin’s own decision to take a step back and the entire family gave their mandate to it.
Sanil acknowledged how his father would struggle at times but would never let anyone learn about it. The Shetty family kept backing the sheer brilliance of Sanil and it was only time that the latter received his first earnings after penning a deal with Air India with a scholarship of 3000 rupees.
Two years later, a stipend of 5000 rupees was fixed and a job with the same firm was on the cards when he turned 18. All thanks to his determination and outstanding gameplay on the table.
While reacting to going through the hard yards and getting paid for it, Sanil said:
“Basically, I have a nature that likes to face challenges. So I never gave up. If my coach tells me I have to play for six hours, I am there on the court. I never say that I am tired. Even if I am tired, I want to give my 100%.. At that age (during school), I used to play for 12 hours and never used to go home.
"Like morning I used to come to the court at 5 o'clock. Practice, breakfast, stay there, sleep, again practice and at night I would leave for home.”
The rise to international Table Tennis
Sanil got a breakthrough in the international arena when he won the US Open U21 for India in 2010. It was the same year that Sharath Kamal bagged the US Open Table Tennis Championships crown in the men’s category. After his first major success, Sanil made an appearance at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.
The real sense of achievement that hit the paddler from Mumbai was clinching his maiden National Championship title in 2013 after defeating Surat’s Harmeet Desai 4-2 in the final. It was a match where Shetty was on his toes throughout the six games.
After leading 2-1, Sanil faced a comeback threat from his opponent in the fourth game where he was 9-10 down before unleashing a shot he would only play once in his career. That shot changed the course of the game and brought Sanil back into the game with a 3-1 commanding lead.
While explaining the amusement of playing that shot, Sanil described:
“From nowhere, this is the table (while pointing to the right corner) I was near the arena. He made a forehand and there I made a backhand to take the winner. I have never played that shot again thereafter.”
He added:
“That’s not my game. I am a forehand-based player. Even if I want to play back hand I play close to the table. That day, that moment, that shot from anywhere and on the court. And that’s the winner. Because he was not prepared that I can make that shot. And it was a big rally and that one point.”
Sanil and Harmeet have been part of India’s Table Tennis team events and have also paired in many double events as well. But whenever they discuss the 2013 National Championship final, Harmeet gets a bit annoyed before both burst into laughter.
CWG success so far
The national title was certainly a turning point in the Maharashtra paddler’s career and he went from strength to strength to bag many titles in his path. Sanil’s high point of nearly two decades of playing table tennis is being part of two Commonwealth men’s team event gold medals. His overall medal tally at CWG is three, including the 2018 men’s doubles bronze along with Harmeet Desai.
Sanil regards the bronze medal game as higher than winning those two gold medals in team events. While selecting his best Commonwealth Games campaign, Sanil said:
“In that Commonwealth games, I played a bronze medal match in (men’s) doubles. I think it is more important than winning a gold. Because when you play the final you are getting a gold or silver but here you get a bronze or nothing.”
Sanil further stressed how the Indian pair defeated Singapore’s Pang Yewn En Koen and Poh Shao Feng Ethan with scores of 12-10, 11-5, and 11-6. He said:
“Me and Harmeet were the partners playing against Singapore. But this was more special for me because we felt the pressure as every medal counts for India and we wanted to win the bronze. When we started the match, we were trailing 1-7.”
He added:
“Luckily, we both played two-three extraordinary points out of the box. So that set we won very closely. In the next set, we just wanted to put the ball on the table and get the points. There was so much pressure and when we won the last point, we were on cloud 9. For the next 30 minutes we were in our own zone even though a gold medal game was going on.”
Sanil and Harmeet gave India their 56th medal in that Commonwealth event, which eventually moved to 64 at the conclusion.
Sanil Shetty's toughest opponent on court
Any prominent player or team will always have an Achilles heel to overcome in their career. For Sanil Shetty, it is his Indian teammate Gnanasekaran Sathiyan who time and again happens to be a stumbling block.
Speaking on the psychological aspect of his game with Sathiyan, Sanil said:
"It's because whenever I play against him, I feel a little uncomfortable at some or the other point. It’s always close sets but he takes the game. Maybe it's because of my psychology."
While citing some interesting battles between him and G Sathiyan, Shetty described:
“In 2013, me and Sathiyan were playing in a quarter-final and the winner will be selected in the Commonwealth Games. There I beat him 4-0 (in sets) and that year I beat Harmeet in the final of the national championship. I finished at No.1 in India."
He further added:
“Before winning this (against Sathiyan), I lost to him two times. Obviously it feels good after winning but we didn’t play much after that against each other. Like in the last senior nationals, I lost against him 4-0. First set was fine but later I was so uncomfortable it went off with no fight and I just gave up. He got me stuck so badly that my mind went off. (in the semi-finals).”
“If I win against him I really feel I have improved a lot. To win against him you really need to work on some skills because he is in good shape.”
Do left-handers have advantage in interactive sports?
A study from 2017 suggests that left-handed players hold an edge over their opponents in interactive sports like baseball, cricket and table tennis. Sanil is one of the two left-handed players in the Indian TT fraternity, with Gujarat’s Manush Shah being the other.
Sanil does not completely back the belief of left-handers having complete tactical advantages in a rally, saying:
“I agree with it, but not totally. The reason why people think left-handers have an advantage is that there are very few left-handers in India. Basically you practice every day only with right-handers. In the match if you play against me, your mind will not be active because I have different angles and the right-hander has different."
He added:
“You will always feel that a lefty is difficult to play and they are very lucky in terms of angles. But if you play every day with left-handers then you learn their game. For example Aman Balgu (Sanil’s present coach), he is very strong with left-handers because from childhood he only played against them.
"He exactly knows where the ball will come. For me also, I find it difficult to play with the left-handers because there are very few left-handers.”
Sanil, who travels to European countries like Germany and Hungary to play in club competitions, further elaborated on the advantages and disadvantages of playing against a lefty, the southpaw said:
“We have an advantage with the service. For the spin, we have different angles. We can curve the ball more. When I play (return) good balls, it's always going wide from the opponent’s end. So I think we have an advantage.”
He added:
“But the disadvantage in India is that you have very few left-handers. When you go to international events, there will be eight out of 10 left-handers. In India it's one or two out of 10. From my playing time I have seen only 5 or 6 left-handers. I prefer to serve against right-handers because you know their games but when you have no practice against left-handers then you don’t have the game plan for them.”
Sanil Shetty's experience with different coaches
Sanil has been training under different coaches in his career, which has spanned over two decades. He started at the school level under Deepak Mani before moving to Germany to train under former India national team coach Peter Engel.
While explaining his shift from India to Germany and his experience of working with an Indian and foreign coach, Sanil said:
“I was with Deepak sir till nationals and had good understanding but he never went outside India to see how the international players train and work. He worked on me till what he had in his capacity.
“So after that I went under Peter Engel who was the coach of the Indian national team. He worked on my backhand because before that I never used to play on backhand so much. Only forehand. He started working on my footwork and other things.”
He added:
“That year I won against a lot of top players from Europe. But after some time, he shifted his base from Germany to Luxembourg. When I played in Germany, there were a lot of players, Luxembourg was new to me. We both were trying to find a solution as I didn’t want to go to Luxembourg at that moment, and he had some problem in the German center.”
Sanil was left without a coach for at least two years before a conversation with former teammate Aman Balgu on bringing a different approach to his gamestyle. He needed a helping hand to come out of his lean patch and that’s where Aman took the charge to get him back on track.
Over the past year, the two have started working in a new capacity as coach-trainees, and the player finds himself in a better position.
Speaking about his equation with Aman and how they trained at the AVSC Table Tennis Academy in Hyderabad, the 33-year-old paddler said:
“We know each other since childhood, we were partners when we started Table Tennis together. He knows me in and out like what is good for me. Before that he was a player training in Hyderabad when I was under Peter Engel.He (Aman) started his coaching in 2018. He asked me what I wanted to do and I said that I wanted to get back to what I was three years ago.”
He added:
“So we started working on my weaknesses and again started getting back on track. That year we had the only national championship where I lost in the quarter-final to Sathiyan. So after the match we sat and spoke that I am on the right track.”
Sanil tied the knot with fellow Table Tennis player Reeth Rishya Tennison in December 2018 and the couple completed four years of their marriage last year. They have also participated in many major tournaments as India’s mixed doubles pair, including the CWG 2022.
Speaking about the experience in playing with his wife on the court, Sanil said:
“I think we gel up very well. We have played a few other tournaments as well. This (CWG 2022) was not as good as what we expected from this tournament. Before we have won the national ranking tournament doubles, inter-institutional doubles. We have played two tour semi-finals.”
Sanil is keen to qualify for the Paris Olympics in 2024 as it is the only major global event he is yet to feature in.
