India’s golden run at the Commonwealth Games table tennis championships has certainly made the country sit up and take notice and nothing really can undermine the significance of this achievement. The manner in which the crack trio of A Sarath Kamal, Soumyadeep Roy and Subhajit Saha battled the odds before putting it across fancied sides like Nigeria and Singapore shows that given the chance, Indians do have it in them to rise above the usual mediocrity.

True, the traditional table tennis powerhouses like China, Sweden, Germany, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei aren’t part of the Commonwealth family, but that doesn’t take anything away from the exploits of the Indians. They had won gold in the Commonwealth Championships in Kuala Lumpur two years back, but Nigeria hadn’t come then and Singapore had sent a second-string side.

So when the Indians came up against Nigeria who had in their ranks the immensely talented Toriola Segun — ranked 111 in the world only because he doesn’t travel around the globe playing tournaments, but still higher that the highest Indian in Kamal at 151 — it looked a difficult proposition.

Segun thrashed both Kamal and Roy in straight games, but the Indians had more depth in their ranks as proved by the fact that they won the other three singles to sail into their first final.

If Segun was a big hurdle, then Singapore’s best player Yang Zi, at 56, was an even tougher opponent. Zi expectedly beat Roy, ranked 214 in the first singles, but Kamal unexpectedly lost to Cai Xiao Li, ranked 218. Having a strong third singles player in Saha obviously helped and when Kamal upset Zi, the Indians were understandably over the moon. Roy then kept his nerve as he took out Li to give Indian table tennis one of its proudest moments.

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