After being India’s top athlete at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, where she was India’s athlete of the Games, and the 2019 Asian Games, when she became the first Indian female paddler to win a medal — with veteran A. Sharath Kamal in mixed doubles — Manika Batra has been in the news for all the wrong reasons for most of the last four years.
Despite emerging as the first Indian paddler to win two matches at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Manika made headlines for keeping the coach’s chair empty in Tokyo, with her then-personal coach being disallowed to be a part of the contingent. It was followed by her allegations of being asked to tank the Olympic selection trial, which eventually resulted in her dragging the national federation to court and the office-bearers being disbarred from functioning by the court.
Amidst all this, Manika left Sharath and joined hands with G. Sathiyan as her mixed doubles partner. Towards the end of last year, she was in the spotlight again.
But this time for all the right reasons: she had become the first Indian woman and the first Indian in more than two decades to end up on the podium of the Asian Cup. But around the same time, she moved base from Mumbai — where she was training under Chris Pfeifer after ending her association with Sanmay Paranjape in Pune — to Hyderabad.
With new personal coach Aman Balgu in her corner and having reunited with the likes of Sanil Shetty and T. Reeth Rishya — with whom she had earlier trained at Paranjape’s high performance centre in Pune — Manika is getting back in shape towards the end of the Asian Games cycle.
The lanky girl, excited about the return of Ultimate Table Tennis — the franchise-based league — opened up about dealing with controversies and her preparation for the Asian Games.
Manika is getting back in shape towards the end of the Asian Games cycle. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
A round of 32 singles appearance at the World Championship in May, but the first loss to Adriana Diaz in your career. Satisfied with the overall campaign?
I played better than the last World Championship, but of course I am not happy with my performance. In fact, I am sad because I have beaten her three times before, and this was my first loss against Adriana. But I think she played really well. She applied her mind really well, whereas I was sort of rushing to finish the job off. It’s a part of life. I have learned many things from that match. Even the women’s and mixed doubles outings were nice, and it turned out to be a learning experience. I will just give my best in the forthcoming tournament, and the next time I meet her, I will be able to strategise much better. So overall, it was a good outing with lots of positives, but of course, I was not happy with the results.
Can you elaborate on the learnings?
On the table, I have to work on a few things with my coach (Aman Balgu) in Hyderabad. I cannot reveal trade secrets, you know! Off the table, I have learned the need to be patient, so I will try to apply it to my game in the future.
You are about to complete a full circle with the Asian Games. Having gone through so many upheavals, how confident are you?
To be honest, the confidence level has been right up there since the Asia Cup medal, and of course, my coach Aman has been motivating me. Even though I didn’t fare so well in the top-32 tournament (World Champions in April, where she was the only Indian to qualify and lost to seventh seed Cheng-I-Ching of Chinese Taipei) in Macau, China, my confidence hasn’t been affected at all. As far as my game is concerned, I have improved my forehand. I have been working on strengthening my muscles in the gym, which has been helping me generate more power on the table. It’s brought a few changes to my game, and I am quite happy with those changes.
Over the last three years, you have been involved in so many distractions and controversies. How do you deal with it?
A player has to deal with all these things. Not just players; even you would be going through these things at some point in your life. Everyone has to deal with controversies and criticism at some point; we cannot avoid that. I have experienced that if I try to avoid it, it stays in my mind all the time. So I have learned to deal with it. I have learned to not let it affect the way I train or how I improve, despite all these external factors. I am really happy with myself for being able to do it.
How has your move to Hyderabad helped in that regard?
The atmosphere over there is really nice. When I go to practise, I am not bothered by what’s happening in the outside world. Aman has been constantly telling me it’s not that difficult to break into the top-10 in the world and I can beat these players, be they Chinese or Japanese, which I actually did in the Asia Cup. I am quite happy. Playing with the likes of Sanil, Reeth, and other players — the ones who play with short and long pimples, boys and girls— gives me much-needed variety in practice. Playing with Sanil at times helps me a lot since he is a left-hander.
Historical moment: Manika became the first Indian female paddler to win a medal after she bagged bronze with Sharath at the Asian Games. | Photo Credit: PTI
Besides Ultimate Table Tennis, even the full-fledged domestic season is set to return this time. How critical is the national circuit for you, and will you participate in the remaining national ranking tournaments after missing the south zone in Hyderabad?
Domestic tournaments are important, just like international events. I would love to play; it’s not that I don’t want to play in national ranking tournaments. For instance, when the first zonal happened in Hyderabad, I was in the city but had planned intensive training. As professional players, we have to plan our international schedule in a manner that gives us ample time for training and recovery in between. Since the Hyderabad zonal clashed with the same window, I couldn’t play because it is followed by an extensive period of back-to-back tournaments in June and July. In the season ahead, I will try to play as much as possible. It’s not that I avoid playing, but it becomes difficult to participate due to the situation. And it’s not only me. Even others like Sathiyan and Sharath bhaiya cannot really play as much on the domestic circuit as they would like to.
Can you tell us about your schedule in the lead-up to the Asian Games?
Post my training in Hyderabad, I will leave for tournaments in Croatia and Tunisia. And that will be followed by the UTT. I’m really excited for the return of UTT, that too with a new team (Bengaluru Smashers) and new owners (Punit Balan Group). It is going to be a great time to play against different players, both overseas and Indians. It will be a good build-up, just like we had in 2019. After that, we will get some time off for training before playing two more WTT events in August. So it’s going to be quite a power-packed and intense next three months, until the Asian Games. I’ll just try to keep trying out the new variations and training on my skills even while I’m on the road, with an eye on doing well at the Asian Games.
One last bit. Playing with long pimpled rubber, how often have you been told since your early days stuff like ‘pimpled rubber never makes you a champion’?
I never let it bother me. I would just let such remarks pass. No doubt, as players, a lot of contemporaries and seniors have said these things during my formative years.
Honestly, I never bothered about all this talk because I knew I had to excel at it, and at one stage I knew I could not change my style. Pimple is a boon if you know how to add variety to your game with it. If I can do that, it’s great. Sreeja (Akula) is also doing really well with long pimples. There are a few who have limitations to their game, but we are different.
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