The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) secretary-general Arun Banerjee has said that the TTFI Executive Committee will decide in its next meeting whether to take action against Manika Batra after her “outburst” against national coach Soumyadeep Roy.
“It is grossly unfair on her to go after the national coach. Yes, Sutirtha (Mukherjee) trains at his academy, but Soumyadeep has been appointed the national coach,” Banerjee told Sportstar from Tokyo on Tuesday.
On Monday, after exiting the women’s singles in round three of the Olympics, Manika, in an interview with Sportstar , had expressed disappointment over not being allowed to have her personal coach in her corner for singles matches.
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“Our national coach here (Soumyadeep Roy) is Sutirtha’s personal coach, so it helped her. I think if my personal coach could also sit for my matches, it would have helped a lot,” Manika had said.
Banerjee, however, said Manika knew even before arriving in Tokyo that her coach Sanmay Paranjape couldn't be in the arena for her matches. “Even before we left, she knew that her coach had P category accreditation, which means he had access only for practice facilities,” Banerjee said.
“I don’t understand the need to go after Soumyadeep for no reason over here. I will put forward the Team Leader’s (M.P. Singh) report to the TTFI Executive Committee during our next meeting and the Committee will decide the future course of action.”
Manika preferred to play her singles matches without the national coach on the sidelines, with Paranjapse advising her from the gallery. The empty chair in her corner emerged as a talking point during India’s table tennis outing in Tokyo.
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