India TT ace Gnansekaran Sathiyan tells mid-day how his German robot solved his training issues during the pandemic. He made it to the prestigious WTT Champions event in Budapest recently
India paddler G Sathiyan trains with a robot at his home in Chennai recently
India table tennis star Gnansekaran Sathiyan, 29, admits being confused when Covid-19 struck two years ago and paraylsed global sport. However, a few training innovations helped him tide over those challenges and more importantly, he continues to practise a few of those innovations even today, in the post-Covid phase. In fact, these methods are actually helping India’s highest ranked paddler (World No.35) prepare for bigger challenges ahead.
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“Given the need to reduce or avoid human interaction, I brought home a robot and started training with it. I also took to yoga. Thankfully, these two things continue to form a crucial part of my training,” Sathiyan told mid-day recently from Budapest, Hungary, where he was playing a tournament in preparation for the ongoing Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
The Chennai paddler procured the Butterfly Amicus Prime robot from Germany in 2020, bang in the middle of the peak pandemic phase, on the advice of his coach Subramanian Raman. However, even he did not realise that the robot would become such an important part of his training regime. “Things have become normal and I have sparring partners now, but I still continue to train with the robot.
I have learnt so much about my own game that I probably would not have known previously. I used to train for around 90 minutes during a session with the robot during the COVID phase, but now I have increased that duration,” said Sathiyan.
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The robot can be customised to varying speeds, with options to adjust the spin, distance and trajectory of the ball as per requirement. “I change little things here and there while training with the robot. I have increased the speed and try to keep up with the consistent pace and accuracy of the robot. “This helps improve my fitness too. I have also been working on the receiving aspect against the robot and that has also greatly improved,” explained Sathiyan, whose engineering degree is an advantage as he looks to derive maximum benefit from his machine.
Sathiyan, who recently became the first Indian to feature in WTT’s premier event—the WTT Champions in Budapest, fought hard before going down 2-3 (8-11, 13-11, 11-7, 7-11, 9-11) to World No. 27 Kirill Gerassimenko of Kazakhstan. The WTT Champions competition features the world’s top 32 players (as per ITTF rankings).
At the CWG in Birmingham, Sathiyan will compete in the men’s singles, men’s doubles (with Sharath Kamal) and mixed doubles (with Manika Batra) events.
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