Table tennis For Singh, age is just a number

Langton The Beatles

THERE are three things that Vikram Singh values ​​a lot his family, his work and of course table tennis.

In fact, the sport has kept him going for the past 30 years.

When he is not working, Singh, who is a general manger for a long-distance transport company in Msasa, Harare, loves spending time with his wife and three children.

But there’s no doubt that table tennis has also taken up most of his time since the early 1990s, when he first picked up a racket.

What started as a pastime, thanks to a birthday gift from a family member, turned out to be a profitable hobby that has made Singh a local hero.

I got a Chinese bat for my birthday and from then on I went to Churchill School where we started a club with my friend and brother Ajay, he said.

Then we signed up for the league; The 90s were quite lively.

You had different people from all walks of life, people from embassies and it gave table tennis a rich heritage.

Singh, who won the national title in the series, remains Zimbabwe’s best player.

The 47-year-old is currently at the top of the rankings with 257 points, a whopping 53 points ahead of second-placed Brian Chamboko.

Tinotenda Fambira, who defeated the national title prodigy Singh on April 30, is a distant third with 187 points. The gap between Singh and his opponents is so huge that he can take a three-tournament break from the game and no one will pass him.

Although he turns 48 this year, he is still good enough to compete.

The veteran lost 2-3 to 19-year-old Fambira, a player he believes can rise to greater heights if given more light.

I think Fambira needs a lot more practice. I would really like if he could be sent out of the country for proper training,” Singh said.

Table tennis has been a stop-start development since the early 1990s, when the sport became popular in the country.

The likes of Celso Ribeiro and Justice Muskwe were pioneers but have since retired from the game.

Yet Singh, who burst onto the scene as a 16-year-old in 1991, is still batting.

He says he can play well into his 50s.

By the time I was 18, I had won three men’s singles tournaments playing against Muskwe and Ribeiro, so that’s when I got so passionate about the sport. He then went to India to study in the late 1990s, where he continued to play sports.

He returned to Zimbabwe in 2004.

Table tennis was kind of dead; the country’s economy was not so vibrant and people had other things to do to make a living.

Sports became more of a luxury, he added.

But a few players played, so the sport continued. Credit also goes to long-serving players such as Chamboko and Takudzwa Mudonhi.

He may be 30 years old, but I think Chamboko still has a lot to offer. I think Chamboko and Wang Liping are the only other players in Zimbabwe who play quality table tennis and understand spin.

Around 2011 and 2012, local table tennis became a two-horse race between Singh and Chamboko.

We dominated the final, but I started to get tired. I felt like I had to give the youngsters a chance, but it felt like the juniors weren’t giving me one.

They said I was still winning so I had to keep going. So, I told myself, as long as these guys learn from me, I have to keep going. He would have liked to have played in the 1995 All-Africa Games hosted by Zimbabwe, but he had to focus on his studies.

However, he managed to represent the country in several Region Five Games after the turn of the millennium.

i will continue. I love sports immensely.

I think losing teaches more than winning.

I exercise regularly; it’s all about the effort you put into the game.

The veteran has some advice for up-and-coming players.

You can’t play the same game with everyone.

Everyone has a different style; That’s why one size doesn’t fit all, and you have to take that experience and make sure you adapt to win, he said.