It was a phase G. Sathiyan had never experienced before.
Having enjoyed a career-high of World ranking of 24 in 2019, Sathiyan was going through one of the worst times of his professional table tennis career four years later.
A severe pain to his lower back and knee in the latter half of 2023 was threatening to pull him down especially with the Paris Olympics qualification looming large.
Prioritising tournaments over recovery, Sathiyan played in quite a few WTT Contender and Star Contender events, only to lose early in many events which made matters worse.
In March 2024, the 31-year-old got back his sagging confidence when he bagged the men’s singles crown at the WTT Feeder tournament in Beirut, defeating Chuang Chih-Yuan of Taipei, the top seed, in the final. The title, his fourth overall and first since 2021, pushed him up by 34 places wherein he reached No. 60 in the world rankings. He is the second ranked Indian now behind Sharath (WR 35) in men’s singles International rankings.
Devastated
“I was devastated,” admitted the Commonwealth and Asian Games medallist, on the injuries. “This was the first time I was saddled with a major injury in my career.”
The best part about Sathiyan is his keenness to improve and introspect when the chips are down that separates him from others.
Sitting down with his coach S. Raman, he dug deep into his game to understand what he was doing wrong. Separately, he made a conscious decision to move to Primal Patters, headed by renowned fitness trainer Shanker Basu and backed by physio Navneeth. Slowly and steadily, Sathiyan started to reap the rewards.
“I started to focus more on recovery, an area I neglected as a youngster. I started doing ice bath, massages, strength training and physiotherapy. My routine was recovery, fitness and practice. Once I started to do that regularly, I was feeling better and then I started to build on it,” explained Sathiyan.
Basu also tweaked the routines that Sathiyan was used to till then. “I changed my warm-up routines. My rehabilitation and fitness program, too, changed. I focused more on my diet and realised the need to be more disciplined when you travel. Of course, on court I was focused. Off-court I made some changes,” added Sathiyan.
Back to basics
Raman, too, has played a huge part in Sathiyan’s career. The 54-year-old Olympian encourages Sathiyan to challenge his coaching style and there are instances of the two challenging each other on the best way to go forward as far as technique and fitness were concerned.
“Raman sir went back to the basics. Nowadays, youngsters have become aggressive and the key was to adapt. Now, players world ranked in 100-150 challenge the top players. They are not scared. We worked on adding some skills and rectify quite a few technical mistakes related to timing and speed,” said Sathiyan.
In the singles semifinals against Chuang in Beirut, Sathiyan was on top of his game in counter-attacks and blocks. During long rallies, the Indian was consistent and was excellent in defence and in unleashing forehand top spin winners when it warranted.
Sathiyan defeated Manav Thakkar in the final and the next day without a break, he played in the WTT Feeder II in Beirut, where he reached the semifinals.
Sathiyan revealed that he was able to play back-to-back tournaments because of the training routines provided by Sankar. “There was not even a day’s break. After the WTT Beirut I event, I started playing the next day. Six days of continuous playing. I have not done it before, playing in two Feeder events back-to-back,” he said.
The chronology
Explaining the chronology of his injury and recovery, Sathiyan said: “After the Senior Nationals in December 2023, I started to do proper rehab and went back to do basic work on my technical flaws, which took time. Then, I started to work on my game mentally and physically. That time was the critical phase of qualifying period for the Paris Olympics. After January, I started to feel better about my game. I was getting into my rhythm at the World team championships in February in Busan. I was playing well in the Singapore Smash tournament, too. In fact, I was leading by two games to one and 5-1 up in the third game against France’s Lillian Bardet in the first qualifying round before I lost the game and the match. After January, I was in a much better shape physically. And I had better clarity.”
According to Sathiyan, the changes in the points system by World Table Tennis also played a part in his rankings going down. “WTT announced in January that only points accrued from June 2023 will stand and not the usual two-year period,” he said.
Sathiyan further emphasised that WTT stopped allowing any window for training in its calender unlike earlier times when there was a window for training and practice that helped players to recoup.
“This was a new challenge for us. We had to adapt and hence do training in-between tournaments,” he said.
The last three years, said Sathiyan, has been non-stop with major tournaments. With three events—Tokyo Olympics (2021), Commonwealth Games (2022), Asian Games (2023) and now the Paris Olympics (2024)—he said, there was hardly any time for recovery, one of the many reasons that led to him being injured. “This was the first time that three big events happened every year, 2021, ‘22 & ‘23. It was a huge challenge. I am happy that I have recovered and progressed well,” he said.
Whenever Sathiyan has lost his form, he has relied on smaller events to bail him out. After a poor show in the Tokyo Olympics, he won the ITTF Czech Open as the top seed. This time, when he was again down and out, he took part in the WTT Feeder event in Beirut and won it.
On the rationale of participating in lower tier events when he loses his touch, Sathiyan replied, “I think for me, the concept is to play more matches. In Feeder events, you get to play more matches. In Contender events, the level is high and you directly play at a high level. When you are not in good form, you either play a tournament in India or play a Feeder event. That’s the best way to progress and gain confidence.”
However, he said Feeder events are becoming tougher as players outside the top 30 in the world play and the competition is high. “The Feeder events concepts have changed. Though there are no World top 30 players, six players from 31 to 50 are allowed. Feeders are as good as Contender events,” he insisted.
The two-time Senior National champion wants to improve his singles rankings and enter the top 50 in the world to brighten his chance of sealing a spot in the men’s team event for Paris Olympics. That, though, will not be easy. Even though Sathiyan is ranked two behind Sharath in International rankings, he is ranked five in Indian (domestic) rankings and are two others breathing down Sathiyan’s throat. “It’s a tight race in men’s. Manav Thakkar (63), Harmeet Desai (66) and I are neck-to-neck in world rankings. It’s a healthy competition. We will know the composition of the team when the Table Tennis Federation of India announces it on May 16,” he said.
Sathiyan is also eyeing a berth in mixed doubles with Manika Batra for the Paris Olympics when the two-day World mixed doubles Olympic qualification tournament begins on April 11 in Havirov (Czech Republic). “We are ranked 16 in the Race to Olympics rankings. Four pairs from Havirov will directly qualify. The qualification (for Olympics) looks difficult. We are confident of putting up a fight,” he said.
Setbacks have always got the best out of Sathiyan. He will be hoping he will come out, unscathed.
