India's top three women paddlers — Manika Batra, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Madhurika Patkar — are absent from the ongoing National table tennis camp at the Delhi Public School (Sonepat) for the Asian championships to be held in Doha from September 28 to October 5.
Ayhika Mukherjee, Archana Kamath and Sreeja Akula are the only high-profile names at the camp now. With Manika refusing to take part and Sutirtha, India’s second best, opting out due to ‘personal’ reasons, the TTFI has requested the Sports Authority of India (SAI) to get Madhurika for the camp along with Krittwika Sinha Roy and Takema Sarkar.
On the other hand, the Indian men's team will be in full strength in a few days’ time. While Sharath Kamal, A. Amalraj, Sanil Shetty, and Manav Thakkar have been training at Sonepat for the last few days, G. Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai are expected to join on September 9.
“We are training hard for the Asian event,” Sharath told The Hindu.
