July 15: High on confidence after bagging two international titles in as many weeks, Olympian paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal wants to continue his red-hot form till October, when he defends the men’s singles title at the Delhi Commonwealth Games.
“This year has been very fruitful for me. I reached the semifinals of the Indian Open, then won the British Open and the Egypt Open... the last four weeks have been fabulous for me. And now my target is the Commonwealth Games,” Sharath Kamal told this paper on Thursday.
“These wins were morale-boosters. If I perform like this I can give my best at the CWG,” he added.
Sharath clinched the US Open title in Michigan on July 4 and followed up with the Egypt Open in Cairo on Sunday to become the first Indian to win an ITTF Pro Tour singles title. “It was one of my memorable matches and the biggest win of my career. My expectation while going to Cairo were to get into the semifinals as I was the fifth seed but things worked out well and were beyond my expectations.
Winning the US Open before that gave me a lot of confidence,” he added. In Cairo, Sharath quelled the challenge of top seed Lee Ching of Hong Kong 11-7, 11-9, 11-8, 11-4 in a surprisingly one-sided final.
“I had played Lee earlier also and lost in 2005 and 2009. “It was quite hard. There was a lot of homework that I did before going into this match and studied videos of his games. In fact the pressure was more on him as he was the top seed. I just went in with nothing to lose and gave it my best shot,” he said. On what he did different this time against Lee, the 26-year-old said, “The most important thing was that I had to be quicker than him. I had to enhance my speed and I was basically focusing on it. Besides that, it was the selection of shots that I was concentrating on.”
The Chennai lad is very satisfied with the Games preparations and expects more medals from the team this time. “I can’t ask for more... I wanted a break but it’s not possible. There are many training camps and events before the Games. The plan has been made an year ago and we are working according to it.