New Delhi: Indian paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal feels his stint with Borussia Dsseldorf, the premier German club, will help him gradually improve his standings and break into the top-30 of the world rankings.
Sharath will be plying his trade with the German club for the 2013-14 season, featuring alongside world number five Timo Boll and Patrick Baum (21).
"This is one of the biggest breaks in my career and I think it has come at the right time, when I want to get to the top 30 in the world," Sharath told PTI in an interview.
"I am hoping to learn how top players think, what do they do before and after matches, how do they go about with their practice and fitness. It will be a great platform for me and I hope I can be better than them," said Sharath, who will be shortly leaving for Germany where season begins from August 31.
Sharath has recommended Peter Engel's name to the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) for the position of head coach of the national team as he feels the German's vast coaching experience will be beneficial for the Indian paddlers.
"I know Peter Engel since my stint in Spain (while playing for clubs there), he was the coach of Spain then. He is a good coach with a lot of knowledge about the game and with a lot of experience with top level sport. So I hope it will be a good boost and support to Indian TT," he said.
To enter 30s might signal decline in many sports, but for leading Indian paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal, it is the start of his peak form. "The best table tennis is played between the age of 26-34 as the understanding of the game comes with a lot of experience. I am in this bracket now where I need to concentrate more on my fitness to keep up with the speed at the international level.
"I spend more or less the same time at the gym and fitness grounds compared to the time spent on table tennis," said the 31-year-old highest-ranked Indian in the world at 64.
Since the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships (CTTC) held here in May, Sharath has enjoyed a decent show in the subsequent tournaments, including, reaching the last-16 in singles of the Japan Open last month.
"There were a lot of positive things starting from the Commonwealth Championships. I am high on confidence now. At the World Championships, I beat my arch-rival from Spain Carlos Machado, we were one of the best players in the league in Spain. Though I lost to Timo Boll in the next game but I was quite happy with the way I played there. Finally finished the season with the Asian Championships where we got the team gold medal in the second division," said Sharath, who won a bronze medal in the CTTC.
Coming off a lean patch in the last two seasons, Sharath is working hard to make this more fruitful by being more consistent. "I think consistency can be achieved when we are constantly exposed to a good level of training and matches."
Sharath has also set his sights at the next year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and would be aiming to improve India's team ranking for the competition besides repeating his individual feat of singles' gold in 2004 Kuala Lumpur.
"We have been doing quite well as a team in the recent tournaments like CTTC and Asain Championships. The most important goal for the coming months would be to get the Team ranking higher than England, so we would have better draw in the Commonwealth Games 2014.
"We would have to focus more on working on our fitness and to keep up with the speed as this is always a very important aspect in our sport," he signed off.
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