By IANS
New Delhi : Led by National Champion Achanta Sharath Kamal, a 10-member Indian team will participate in the World Table Tennis Championships to be held from Feb 24 to Mar 2 in Guangzhou, China.
The Indian contingent – five men and five women – left Friday for the prestigious event.
Apart from Sharath Kamal, other members in the men’s section are Soumyadeep Roy, Subhajit Saha, Pathik Mehta and Anthony Amal Raj. The women players are Poulomi Ghatak, Mouma Das, Kasturi Chakroborty, Kumaresen Shamini and Neha Aggarwal.
The team will be accompanied by newly appointed foreign coach Aleksey Yefremov of Belarus.
“I am hopeful that we can put up a good show at the championships. Last year we finished 35th, but this year I am expecting to win the gold in the second division of the championships,” Sharath Kamal told IANS.
“We had a good 20-day training camp under a new foreign coach in Patiala before the World Championships, although I attended the camp three days ago as I was playing for the club championships in Spain.”
Sharah Kamal, who plays for Spanish second division club San Sabestian, said after the World Championships, the team would head straight to Hong Kong to participate in the Olympic qualifiers Mar 6-9.
India will bid to host the 2011 World Junior Championships at the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) annual general meeting to be held during the World Championships.