CHENNAI: After a three-year association with Manika Batra in mixed doubles, paddler Sathiyan Gnanasekaran has mutually parted ways with her. Tamil Nadu player Sathiyan will combine forces with Sreeja Akula, with their partnership set to start at the end of this season or beginning of next.
Sathiyan and Manika entered the top-five in the world rankings. But things did not go their way in the past few months as they failed to qualify for the Paris Olympics. This could have led to the decision. "We played quite well for three years, but the last few months were not good. After playing together in an Olympic cycle, we thought that we needed a change. We wanted new partners and see how it goes; we can come together again if needed.
I will play with Sreeja for at least two years, till the Asian Games," Sathiyan told TOI.
"After the Olympics, we (Manika and I) started discussing how to go about it. We discussed the change with Indian team head coach Massimo Costantini and with Sreeja's coach Somnath Ghosh and then took the decision (it was a collective decision). Sreeja has a lot of similarities to the game style of Manika. Sreeja was the obvious choice and when I asked her, she was fine with it."
Sathiyan and Sreeja had played together in two WTT tournaments in Nigeria and Tunisia before the Paris Games, reaching the semifinals in the latter. Sreeja, who is the top-ranked Indian women's player in singles, is recovering from an injury.
"I am not sure if we will be playing in the Asian Championships as only two mixed pairs per country are allowed to compete. As Sreeja is coming back from an injury, we do not want to push her. We will get ready for the World Championships in May."
