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NEW DELHI: Commonwealth Games gold medallist and reigning national table tennis champion, Harmeet Desai, will be flying to Paris next week to participate in the prestigious French TT League, which is set to begin from October 20. Desai will be representing the Loire Nord Table Tennis Club in the league.
After reaching Paris, he’ll take another flight to Lyon, which is the base city for his club. The 27-year-old had signed up with the French club in the month of January this year and was scheduled to travel to the country much earlier, but the Covid-19 pandemic put a spanner in his plans. The world No. 72 finally received his visa on Wednesday after a long wait.
“France is a strong nation in table tennis. They’ve a professional league. The players in Europe have started to play… they’re involved in competitive games. They are in match mode. It was really important for me to get back into match mode,” Harmeet told TOI.
“In the last 7 months, I have not played a single match and that’s the longest I’ve been away from playing a table tennis match.”
Initially, Harmeet’s practice partner during the lockdown period was a robot, the India No. 3 men’s singles player revealed. “Training with a robot is different (from training with humans). It helps improve your skills. It’s multi-ball training – you have 100 balls within a few minutes and you can give a lot of spin, you can adjust the speed and everything. But it is all constant.
“A human will always be unpredictable. There will be a lot more variations. Things change from one player to another. A lot of factors come in… things like playing a left-hander or a right-handed player, an aggressive or a defensive player,” said Harmeet.
Desai is planning to stay in Europe till December. After the French League, if circumstances are favourable, he’ll move to Ochsenhausen in Germany to train under his coach Fu Yong. Else, Harmeet is intending to extend his stay in France and continue training.
After reaching Paris, he’ll take another flight to Lyon, which is the base city for his club. The 27-year-old had signed up with the French club in the month of January this year and was scheduled to travel to the country much earlier, but the Covid-19 pandemic put a spanner in his plans. The world No. 72 finally received his visa on Wednesday after a long wait.
“France is a strong nation in table tennis. They’ve a professional league. The players in Europe have started to play… they’re involved in competitive games. They are in match mode. It was really important for me to get back into match mode,” Harmeet told TOI.
“In the last 7 months, I have not played a single match and that’s the longest I’ve been away from playing a table tennis match.”
Initially, Harmeet’s practice partner during the lockdown period was a robot, the India No. 3 men’s singles player revealed. “Training with a robot is different (from training with humans). It helps improve your skills. It’s multi-ball training – you have 100 balls within a few minutes and you can give a lot of spin, you can adjust the speed and everything. But it is all constant.
“A human will always be unpredictable. There will be a lot more variations. Things change from one player to another. A lot of factors come in… things like playing a left-hander or a right-handed player, an aggressive or a defensive player,” said Harmeet.
Desai is planning to stay in Europe till December. After the French League, if circumstances are favourable, he’ll move to Ochsenhausen in Germany to train under his coach Fu Yong. Else, Harmeet is intending to extend his stay in France and continue training.
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