Matured and more experienced Sathiyan Gnanasekaran raring to feature at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games

Indian athletes are ready to show their skill at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Similarly star paddler Sathiyan Gnanasekaran is also excited to make the trip and script more history for Indian table tennis. The Indian paddler was still very immature back in 2018 at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games but now with more experiences and grueling matches under his belt the 25-year-old is a far more experienced and matured athlete.

He is currently with the Indian contingent selected for the Commonwealth Games in Portugal. There the players are constantly playing against the Portuguese players and getting ready for the real contest which is knocking at the door right now.

Despite a lot of off the field issues surrounding the Indian table tennis scene for the last few months, Sathiyan defeated European champion Jorgic Darko in the first round of the WTT in Zagreb, Croatia. It was indeed a splendid achievement for the World No.35 as it did boost his morale and now he feels that he can definitely put up a good fight against some of the best players in the world.

“Getting a win against someone like Darko, who is the World No. 6 and a reigning European Cup champion, just a month before the Commonwealth Games has given me a lot of confidence, which I plan to take forward in the upcoming tournaments in Budapest and then the big one in Birmingham,” Sathiyan Gnanasekaran shared in an interaction with The Bridge.

Sathiyan wants to win medals in each of the four events that he will participate in the Commonwealth Games and believes that he is way more matured and experienced than the last edition back in 2018 which happened in the Gold Coast.

“I’m a more experienced player now than in 2018. The 2018 CWG, Asian Games, and the Tokyo Olympics have taught me how to deal with pressure in multi-sporting events of this stature. It’s a totally different kind of atmosphere and over the years I have learnt how to be calmer and more composed,” he reasoned.

He shared how he analyzed his games after the Tokyo Olympics and there he understood the importance of adding variety and aggression to his game. Since then he has worked on both aspects of his game and has become a more well rounded player.

“It’s important to have aggression to play at the top level. I have become more aggressive on the table hence – the focus is to serve really well, hit a quality return and get the first ball in,” he concluded.