Let’s cry after blended doubles match: How Sharath Kamal comforted Sreeja after her heartbreaking loss

Half an hour later, Sharath Kamal, India’s 40-year-old desk tennis star, had simply completed a match himself. He walked into the dressing room and on seeing the 24-year-old Sreeja crying, he mentioned one thing that might lighten the temper.

“Don’t cry now, cry after the mixed doubles match,” he mentioned with amusing, referring to the ultimate he was speculated to play alongside Sreeja in about 5 hours.

Sreeja could not management her laughter.

She and Sharath teamed as much as win India’s first-ever blended doubles Commonwealth Games gold and it was a type of redemption for Sreeja after her loss earlier within the day.

This was additionally the second when the choice of Sreeja’s mother and father to again their daughter’s desk tennis profession and put lecturers on the backburner paid off.

Till Sreeja turned 18, they’d no concept whether or not she may make a profession out of the game.

“Nobody in my family is a sportsperson,” Sreeja tells The Indian Express after getting back from Birmingham. “When you don’t have a sportsperson in your family, there’s always an apprehension of being a professional athlete.”

Sreeja’s desk tennis journey started on the age of eight. Watching her sister, Ravali — who’s three years older than her — play and excel at state tournaments, Sreeja needed to be like her.

“My dad did play desk tennis at native tournaments nevertheless it wasn’t at a excessive degree. My mother and father needed my sister to play some indoor sport and since my dad beloved desk tennis, they determined to enroll her in courses,” she says.

Though Ravali confirmed loads of promise, research bought in the way in which after Grade 10. She gave up desk tennis for lecturers. So when Sreeja reached that age, she thought that the pure development was to surrender desk tennis and give attention to her research.

“I wanted to become a chartered accountant. My sister convinced me and my family not to make the same mistake she made. She convinced me to continue playing TT because she saw how much I loved it and that I was quite decent at it too,” she says.
There was one other drawback. Though she was doing properly on the junior degree, her mother and father weren’t fairly certain it could be financially sustainable to play a sport professionally.

“It’s only when I turned 18 and got a job with RBI because of table tennis that my family let go of that apprehension. It was then that I too could concentrate more on the sport because I didn’t have to worry about the financial aspect.”

2019 was the breakthrough yr for her, she says. “It was the first time I played in the senior category and won two medals. At the Commonwealth TT Championships in Cuttack, I won bronze in singles and mixed doubles and silver in doubles.”
While Sreeja and Sharath made the unlikeliest of partnerships in Birmingham, they’d partnered with one another as soon as earlier than. And it occurred by probability.

“At the 2019 Commonwealth Championship, it so occurred that Manika (Batra) fell sick after the crew occasion. And since I play with a pimpled rubber like her, Sharath requested me to play with him. I used to be so nervous however we ended up profitable bronze so it was alright,” she says.

While she was taking part in her finest in 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic hit and that meant a break. And she wasn’t used to taking breaks. “I prefer to over-work myself. I prepare on a regular basis so I wasn’t used to a lot free time however I fairly loved it. I bought to spend time with household and that was fairly refreshing,” she says.

This yr she received the nationwide championships, sealing a spot in India’s crew for the Commonwealth Games. “It’s like I’m living a dream, but a dream I’ve worked very hard for,” she says.

So what does she anticipate to alter after her gold in Birmingham? Not a lot, Sreeja, who trains in Hyderabad, says.

“I’ll still have to drive 40 minutes at 5.45am to my training center. I’ll still take the metro every evening to avoid traffic. If anything, I’ll be training harder,” Sreeja, who’s coached by Somnath Ghosh at his academy in a Hyderabad mall, says.