Exclusive: Massimo Costantini underlines key factor as India looks to break Chinese dominance in table tennis

India may not be a powerhouse in table tennis, but it has been on the rise in the last few years as the young players have started to make their mark. In recent years, India, led by Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra, has been on the rise, but is nowhere closer to breaking the deadlock at the Olympics, as China dominates table tennis. However, Massimo Costantini, one of the legendary names in table tennis, has backed India to break the duck, highlighting a key area of interest.

Massimo Costantini underlines key factor

In an exclusive conversation with WION’s Aditya Pimpale, Costantini opened up on how important it is for India to groom young players. He believes India needs strong and good competitiveness if it is to achieve success at the Olympic level. He also believes India is going in the right direction like China, Japan, Korea and more.

Question: Why is it important to have younger age categories, like U13, U15, U19 and more? Also, how important is it to nurture and make these raw talents work?

Yes, previously there were two categories – cadet and junior. Since I have taken charge of the side, I have overseen major changes with the launch of different categories in junior categories. The gap between cadets and juniors was too much, so competitiveness was not fair at that time. So I said Why don’t we create categories every two years and now we are getting the rewards.

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Question: What should be India’s approach for the future of table tennis if we are to challenge the big ones?

Whatever we do now is an investment for tomorrow. Today we have to focus on tomorrow, and this is what other countries don't do. So, whether it's grassroots or coaches or the entire system rotating around one target and that is the Olympic. We need to create a proper infrastructure and the training environment, system and coaches.

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Question: When you first came in 2010, you voiced the need for coaching the coaches. Now, when you are back after 15 years, do you think that the current table tennis ecosystem and the coaching aspect have improved in India in 2010?

Yes, of course, it has improved. Consider that several players from 2010 today are coaches. And I don't think players from 2010, 10 years before, are still coaching. I don't know, maybe one or two. But now we have good coaches around. Saurav Chakraborty is one of the national coaches traveling with me. And he was not even in the Commonwealth Games. In the last match, he was out. Overall, the system is improving and this is where we need a good gardener.