Dream to master Table Tennis - An untold story

[AbhishekS]

Dream to master Table Tennis ? An untold story​

28th July, 1999:
Hello everyone, my name is Abhishek Sharma and today is my 6th birthday. I aspire to become a star, a master or what I can say is a legend in the game of table tennis. On my 6th birthday, my parents have gifted me a brand new racket for the game, but with the racket the thing which is gifted is hope, and this hope is bound to take me a long distance.

When I was just 3 years old, I tried playing table tennis with my uncle who is an expert of the game. No prizes for guessing that it was not an actual match, we guys were just playing for fun. Now he has decided to coach me and evolve me into a good player of the game. My uncle, who is also my coach is 36 years old and his name is Mr. Ayush Mehta. He hails from Gujarat where table tennis is not much famous, for that reason he couldn?t take the sport as a profession but still has his heart with it.

I have currently begun my training at the school level. Every day (except for Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays) from 12.30 PM to 3 PM we guys (all those who have chosen to be a part of the TT campaign) have practice sessions for the game. We are still at the learning level and are primarily being asked to just maintain some rallies. No smashes, no spins and no cross serves, just pure rallies is what our school coach asks us to do. The name of our school coach is Mr. Prathamesh Dahanukar and he is from Nagpur, a city from Maharashtra. Our school, St. Peter?s High School, Thane hired him as a coach six months back and all the students are pretty happy with him after attending the only session he has held so far. Hardcore training begins from 1st August, 1999.

Now that I have two coaches, Mr. Mehta who helps me with the game outside at the school and Prathamesh Sir who is our school coach, I seriously concentrate on the game.
With just three days left for the coaching to begin, I am really excited to see that what?s in store for us.


My Profile:

Name: Abhishek Sharma
Age: 6 Years
Hand: Right
School: St. Peter?s High School, Thane
Class (Grade) and division: I C
House (groups for each class): Yellow (we represent our house for matches scheduled within the school)

To be continued....​

Please note that the school name used is an imaginary name with a random location. No school by such name exists in reality and if it does, its pure co-incidence

 

[Prithvi]

St. Peters high school exists in Hyderabad.
BTW, I guess Prathamesh of PC (Good) will coach you in PC world .

On a serious note, "picture perfect"!

 

[Meet]

Perfect start and beginning for you.Best of Luck

 

[Varun]

The unique concept is what attracts me the most. Nice start!

 

[AbhishekS]

1st August, 1999:
All of us went to the TT room as quickly as we could on the 1st of August. The enthusiasm was high and as expected, we guys begun playing without waiting for our coach. We guys being too small had no idea of what anxiety and nervousness is. But everything went well and our coach arrived soon. We thought that he would ask us to play the rallies again, but no, after the warm-ups, he said that as its the first day today, he wants to arrange a mini tournament between us.

Some of us including me were shocked to hear that we will have a tournament on the first day itself, but then I thought that why to worry, I have the talent to emerge as the winner. Our coach said, "You children maybe feeling odd in playing matches on the first day itself but believe me, there is a reason behind it", he smiled and prepared the draws.

All of us 16 boys were divided in pairs and so we had a total of 8 pair. It was a KO kind of tournament and out of the 16, 8 would proceed, followed by 4 and then the final.

According to the draw, I had to face a guy named Samkit Doshi, a very good friend of mine. Our houses are also very close to each other and thus we share a very good rapport with each other. I was too excited to play against him and he was equally excited as well.

We children begun playing without having any idea of what was on in our coach's mind.

The match between me and Samkit begun. Each match was a single match of 11 points each. Samkit won the toss and he chose to serve, while I stuck with the side I was standing on

The match:
Point by point

Number|Abhishek (Points)|Samkit (Points)|Served by
1|0|1|Samkit
2|0|2|Samkit
3|1|2|Abhishek
4|1|3|Abhishek
5|2|3|Samkit
6|3|3|Samkit
7|4|3|Abhishek
8|5|3|Abhishek
9|6|3|Samkit
10|6|4|Samkit
11|7|4|Abhishek
12|7|5|Abhishek
13|7|6|Samkit
14|8|6|Samkit
15|9|6|Abhishek
16|9|7|Abhishek
17|10|7|Samkit
18|11|7|Samkit

And I won the match against Samkit, 11-7. At the same time, another match was on whose winner had to face me next. The guy who won that was Viraj Vira.

This guy Viraj has an amazing built. Has a good body and is the tallest amongst all of us. I was a little low on confidence on facing him, because he was the only one who knew some amount of spins. With a little bit of anxiety and nervousness, I hold my racket again to face Viraj.

Keep watching this space to know what happened next.

To be continued....​

 

[Meet]

Good win for you
Win this tournament and show your talent.

 

[AkshayS]

Good start Yudi and TT, wow.
Best of luck for this.

 

[AbhishekS]

1st August, 1999:
And the match between me and Viraj is just about to begin. We all thought that he might be a rude, dominating guy but he turned out to be pretty sweet, came to me before the match and said, ?Don?t take any tension buddy, we?ll play it as a friendly.? I was amazed to see how simple he was. Probably from a poor family, his shirt was ragged, had an old racket and had a shabby hair-style.

On seeing this, I begun thinking. What if I lose to him? It will be an insult, or will everyone just take it just a game? I am scared, he is tall and knows spins and smashes, I hope my friends won't tease me. I surely don't wanna lose to him. And I also have a better racket than him, I need to win it. I cannot see this guy winning.

Well, forgetting about those thoughts, I asked him to begin the match. The toss took place and this time I won it. I decided to stay with my end (side) and he took the service.

The match:
Point by point

Number|Abhishek (Points)|Viraj(Points)|Served by
1|0|1|Viraj
2|1|1|Viraj
3|2|1|Abhishek
4|3|1|Abhishek
5|4|1|Viraj
6|4|2|Viraj
7|5|2|Abhishek
8|5|3|Abhishek
9|6|3|Viraj
10|6|4|Viraj
11|6|5|Abhishek
12|6|6|Abhishek
13|6|7|Viraj
14|7|7|Viraj
15|7|8|Abhishek
16|7|9|Abhishek
17|8|9|Viraj
18|8|10|Viraj
19|9|10|Abhishek
20|9|11|Abhishek

So that was it for me in this small tournament. I lost to Viraj, 9-11. I was upset on the loss but at the end of the day, there had to be just one winner, and this time it was Viraj.

Later, Viraj managed to reach the final but loss to a guy named Dhruv. Dhruv, who didn't seem to be very good at TT surprised us all by his victory. Once we congratulated him, our Sir called us back to explain something. What could this be?

To be continued....​

 

[AbhishekS]

Just made a banner for the story. I know it isn't great, but looks good.

 

[AbhishekS]

1st August, 1999:
So after the mini competition, we walked towards our sir. He was busy writing something and didn't allow us to read what that was. Samkit asked, "Sir, what next? Tournament is over, now can we go home?". Sir smiled and replied, "Oh yes, guys who wish to leave can do so. I am just doing an irrelevant work, so there is no meaning in keeping you guys waiting".

Nobody left, except Samkit who rushed out of the room. Later, our sir said, "I didn't wish to tell you guys this, but today's competition was a warmup. It was to bring in the competitive spirit in you and make you realize that rallies may seem simple but the matches aren't. What I was writing were the grades for each student. After a year, we will be comparing them with today's grades to notice the improvement in you all."

"How much did I score in your list", I asked excitedly.

"I won't be telling the marks to anyone, it's just a secret. Bear with me guys, you may feel I am acting a bit strange but you'll realize only after you yourself begin noticing your progress".

I left the room a little upset, sat in the bus and went back home. I was full of anger as our coach called us for this session on a Sunday, and I felt he wasted our time. One can say that my enthusiasm for the game decreased drastically with just one small session of two hours, but who knows what's in store for the future.

To be continued....​

 

[Bevab]

Its bear, not bare. That is a small update. If you have time, increase the update length.

 

[AbhishekS]

Its bear, not bare

Cheers for noticing that.

And I feel the length shouldn't be considered as far as the storyline isn't disturbed. I'm trying to keep this simple from the time I started it.