Thane duo making rapid strides in TT

While one smashes the ball with power and precision, the other blocks it competently. They even exchange feedback after the practice is over. More often than not, the duo find themselves facing each other in the finals of some local and state junior tournaments. Sanish Ambekar and Siddesh Pande are two 20-year old paddlers from Thane who have been training together for the last five years and  will now compete in the senior circuit together as well.

“He’s a good friend but during a competition, that does not matter,” says Pande, after completing a brief training session with Ambekar. The duo is currently playing in the Mumbai Super League, which is a local tournament based out of a format with 10 teams.

Pande was bought by Cool Smashers for Rs 40,000 at the auction and Ambekar was picked at Rs 37,000.

They train at Boosters Academy under Shailaja Gohad. In the encounters between both of them, it is Ambekar who has a better record and Pande admits it. “It is either him or me in many matches, but he has a better record. You can say it is 60-40,” says Pande.

Sanish Ambekar during a match

“He was in another academy but five years back he joined us. Since then, the two of us have been practising together and we have become really good friends,” he adds.

The bigger dream

The first season of Ultimate Table Tennis allowed the Indian table tennis stars to share the same dressing rooms as foreign players. The results were quite visible with the Indian table tennis contingent returning having fought the most successful campaign at the Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast, Australia.

Both table tennis players were picked at the Ultimate Table Tennis draft earlier this year in March. The competition, which will be in its second season this year, has provided Indian players a platform to compete with top international players. The Thane pair missed the chance last year because only the top six players were selected and neither of them were eligible because of their ranks.

Ever since his selection at the draft by RPSG-Mavericks, Pande has been following the players from other nations keenly.

“They look at quality more than quantity,” he says after seeing the Japanese players in cadet and junior competitions in which he has represented India.

“What I have seen in Japanese players is that if they start training at the age of 10, they get international exposure by 16. Here we have been training for 10 years but we are not able to reach that height. I am curious to see how they train,” he says talking about UTT.

Ambekar was picked by Dabang Smashers and he was quick to reach out to Commonwealth Games gold medalist Sathiyan Gnanshekaran who is a part of the franchise. “He (Sathiyan) said it was a great experience to learn and train around top international stars. You can learn a lot,” says Ambekar.

“I am “Now I am playing in the senior category and I am ready to take on this challenge. UTT can help me develop better techniques,” adds Ambekar whose mother is a LIC agent and father a software engineer.

To enter the UTT draft, one has to be ranked among the country’s top six. Like Pande, his compatriot didn’t have a decent rank last year. And this year wasn’t easy for him either. Ambekar fought off a shoulder injury to keep his rank for eligibility.

“A shoulder injury recently kept me off. I was in the top four and I wasn’t able to perform. I needed to stay on in the top 4 and perform to get in the UTT. So I played and maintained my rank. I am glad that the hardwork paid off,”  he recalls.

While Ambekar finished his graduation this year in BSC Computer Science, Pande will finish his final year in Management Studies. Both of them are planning to do their masters in a country where there are table tennis leagues. Maybe both of them will carry their camaraderie to another country as well.