Before turning up for the qualifying rounds of Singapore Smash slated from Thursday to Saturday last week, Sharath Kamal told his family he should be back home by Sunday. With his impatient son waiting, Sharath took the first flight out of Singapore after his matches. Except, he did so on Friday as a quarterfinalist.
What kept Sharath waiting was a rousing run in among the most prestigious events on the WTT tour, which was only halted by world No. 6 Felix Lebrun on Friday. The 17-year-old French prodigy beat the 41-year-old Indian 4-1 (11-9, 11-2, 11-7, 9-11, 11-8) after the qualifier had sent three higher-ranked players packing, including world No. 13 Darjo Jorgic and No. 22 Omar Assar.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games champion hasn’t had a performance like this in singles since and, after battling a drop in form and confidence alongside his back issues last year, he felt that level again in Singapore.
“After a long time, after the CWG I would say, I felt like I was back in that shape. Some of my peers and coaches in India were saying I was even better than at CWG,” Sharath said, an hour before boarding his (belated) flight back to India.
Sharath was ranked world No. 38 at the CWG. Having dropped out of the top 100 late last year, he currently sits at 88th with 228 points. The stunning Singapore swing will make him richer by 350 points and catapult him into the top 40 in the rankings again. More than points, though, it was his performance against world-class players he’d lost to “very easily” in the past — like beating Jorgic and taking a game off Lebrun — that reiterated something for Sharath.
“Everybody was talking a lot about points. But this showed me that when I play my game, have that confidence, get my stuff right on the table, even the best in the world can’t stop it. Well, until a 17-year-old did,” he chuckled.
Immersed in his off-season training with last month’s World Team Championships as his aim, Sharath experienced the periodization high in Singapore.
“I knew that the preparations for Worlds will take me through to Singapore. But I wasn’t in this form at the Worlds. The peaking came one week later.
“This (run) was unexpected, yes. When I beat (Yuta) Tanaka, whom I had lost to at the 2023 Asian Championships, in the second qualifying round, that’s when I felt, ‘wow, I’m playing well at the moment’,” he said.
A key part of that feeling was his movement on the table, which Sharath — and his part-time coach for this tournament, 30th-ranked Dane Anders Lind whom Sharath had chipped in to spar with at the Worlds — thought was “fantastic”.
“I was fast, low on my legs, moving very well. That’s my strength, and that’s when my backhand also comes into play and forehand becomes lethal,” he said.
Also coming into play was the Indian men’s team securing a spot for the Paris Olympics earlier this month after its Round of 16 finish at the Worlds. It freed up Sharath, the person and the paddler.
“All preparations were keeping qualification in mind. Once we got through that, a lot of burden was off. Internally too, there were a lot of questions. I thought I’ll probably have the answers in May-June. As it turns out, I have the answers now.”
The questions (and answers) referred to here are around the two singles quotas that have accompanied the team spot for the Olympics. Before the team Worlds, Sharath wasn’t even thinking about playing singles in Paris. The multiple-time national champion had crashed to several early exits on the WTT tour while also losing to some compatriots in domestic events. His ranking then too kept him below other Indians in the pecking order.
Now with Sharath set to surge into the top 40 as the new India No. 1 in men’s singles and showing signs that his top game can still trouble the top players, things have changed. And so has the belief.
“After the nationals (in December last year, Sharath lost to Manush Shah), a lot of people kept asking, ‘Is Sharath going to play more, what is he going to do?’. For all of them, I’m happy that I’m answering with my racquet,” he said.
“With this form and shape, I would be getting in there (in singles in Paris). And now that I’ve moved so many places up in the rankings, I want to push a little bit higher. Yes, this tournament adds a lot of self-belief. And even at the Olympics, if I have this kind of draw, who knows what can happen.
“But my priority would still be the teams (event). If I’m able to play at this level, Harmeet (Desai) can raise his and Manav (Thakkar) and Sathiyan can support well, we can beat the best teams in the world.”
