'Posters, a big source of motivation'

Sharath Kamal won the table tennis singles gold medal at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

I have been playing table tennis for the last three decades. It’s my identity, my passion and my first love. The game has given everything to me in life and I am really fortunate that I was introduced to the sport by my father and uncle, the Rao brothers — Srinivasa and Muralidhara.

I used to collect centrepage posters and that was one of the main reasons to buy the magazine. There was one season where we pasted all the posters on the walls of our table tennis club in Chennai and that used to be a big source of motivation. And personally for me, I dream of being on the poster sometime in the future, but I really doubt if I have done enough, so far, to justify a spot on the centre poster of Sportstar .

(As told to K. Keerthivasan)