After a year of setbacks, Sutirtha Mukherjee for a comeback

Eighteen months after becoming an Olympian in Tokyo, Sutirtha Mukherjee has seen his coach take his teammates to court over match-fixing allegations, and his financial support through the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) cut off, leading to participation in tournaments. dehydration, his domestic and world rankings decline, his table tennis suffers and his performances decline.

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Over the past month, however, Sutirtha has finally begun to see the light at the end of a seemingly long and dark tunnel. Earlier this week, the Bengali paddler registered as a finalist at the Nationals in Jammu. He lost to holder Sreeja Akula in the singles final, but made it there after falling two years in a row during the event. Prior to that, at WTT Star Contender Goa, Sutirtha reached the round of 16 qualifier with a stunning world ranking of 18th behind Jia Nan Yuan for his best outing in the elite competition series. An hour after Nationals, Sutirtha rushed to Antalya for the WTT Feeder event, still traveling out of his own pocket, albeit with a more positive frame of mind.

My confidence is high now,” he said by phone from Antalya. I feel like I’m getting back on track.

The bikes appeared to have come off that track after the 2021 Tokyo Games. She made it to the second round in the singles there and returned to her personal coach Soumyadeep Roy, who at the time was also embroiled in the court case of India’s national coach Manika Batra. allegedly asking her to throw an Olympic qualifier against Sutirtha to India in order to secure two singles spots in Tokyo. It would soon turn into a legal battle, with a national association in tatters, a coach fighting match-fixing charges and a player dragged into the fray.

That phase was a big distraction,” Sutirtha said. “I am really close to Roy da; he is my coach, my friend, and we share everything with each other. I personally felt very bad to see him go through all that. It hurt me. But even then he never stopped supporting and supporting me. He said: You have to play well, you have to prove yourself. Little by little we put it out of our minds and got away from it.

However, Sutirtha was unable to pull out of a prolonged performance career. Sutirtha continued to train with Roy and Poulomi Ghatak at their academy in Jadavpur and struggled to convert those hours of practice into noteworthy results. Khel hi Nahi pa rahi thi (I could not play my game). I trained hard, but I often got nervous during matches. I don’t know kya ho raha thaa.

Worse, the TOPS funding he received before Tokyo stopped, resulting in Sutirtha struggling to even play in tournaments. The Naihat-born kayaker, who lived in a rented apartment in Jadavpur with his mother, was unable to travel abroad often on his own. I think I only played 3-4 international tournaments in the whole of last year. My financial background is not strong, so everything became difficult.

His WTT ranking dropped to the bottom three digits, and domestically, the two-time champion dropped out of the top eight. Sutirtha wasn’t even considered for the CWG or World Team TT in the last few years, while Sreeja and Diya Chitale got a look. As broken as he was, the humble Sutirtha didn’t even expect to be selected for those events then.

Others were doing well, while my international ranking had gone down, Sutirtha said. Of course I was very disappointed. I have been a part of Indian teams for a while and then suddenly being out of the competition was difficult. But I told myself that the only way to come back is to perform.

It took a lot of self-talk, aside from words of wisdom and motivation from his coaches and parents, to get him through a period where he felt like his career was going nowhere. “I felt really low. I was very upset with myself and not being able to perform. I often talked to Roy da, to myself, trying to understand what was happening to me.

But even then I didn’t stop training. I went back to the drawing board, saw some of my matches and the mistakes I made. And I knew deep down that if I kept doing the right things and working hard, I could bounce back. Wapas aana hai (I must return).

The Nationals in September last year, where she won the singles title beating Manika and Sreeja en route, was a significant step ahead of the WTT Goa and Nationals. Sutirtha has risen to the second place in the national ranking and to the 115th place in the WTT list. Sutirtha is now in a much better place. He’s gotten there, overcoming a few major obstacles, though some still remain, just the way he seems to like it.

My whole life has been more of a struggle, so struggle karke khelna toh mujhe acha lagta hai,” laughed Sutirtha. If you do well after overcoming challenges, you feel more satisfied.