May 6, 2011 12:21 PM

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Sharath Kamal to lead Indian challenge in World TT

Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal will lead a 10-member Indian team in the World Table Tennis Championships in Rotterdam, the Netherlands from 8th to 15th May.Amalraj Anthony, Soumyadeep Roy, Abhishek Ravichandran and Subhajit Saha are the other players in the men's team, while the women's team comprises of Shamini Kumaresan, Madhurika Patkar, Poloumi Ghatak, Mouma Das and Mamata Prabhu."The players are currently undergoing a training camp in China and they will leave for the World Championships tomorrow," Table Tennis Federation of India Secretary General Dhanraj Choudhary said on Thursday.The week-long tournament will see participants from 142 countries competing in five categories — men's singles, men's doubles, women's singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles.Choudhary said the main aim this year would be to do well in the 2012 London Olympics qualifiers."The senior and junior paddlers in both men and women sections will have a busy schedule this year as they prepare for various tournaments in India and abroad, particularly aiming to do well in the Olympic qualifiers later this year," he said."Before that there is the ITTF Pro-tour Grand Finals, which is also a Test Event for the London Olympics, in November. The TTFI will send its players to participate in the Grand Finals," said Choudhary.Meanwhile, the TTFI released the table tennis schedule for this year after its AGM was held in New Delhi recently.India will host the Asian Junior Championships in New Delhi in July."This year's schedule has been chalked out keeping in mind the needs of individual paddlers — from seniors to juniors to youth and sub-juniorsbased on their performances in 2010 CWG and Asian Games," Choudhary said.Lucknow will host the Senior Nationals early next year while Youth and Junior Nationals will be held at Siliguri in December.The National Championships in cadet and sub-junior sections will be held in Kochi in December.Dehradun has been allotted the premium TTFI junior circuit event, Indian Junior and Cadet Open, in September.The prestigious India Cup is scheduled for September and both Rajasthan and West Bengal have evinced interest in hosting the event.

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