Utah Open 2006 was my first major tournament in the United States. I’m disappointed in some way because I was eliminated from Group A (below Open), but I’m proud that I’ve participated in this tournament, and was able to show a competitive game. Let me extend my thanks to everyone who put this event together, and share some of my thoughts on the game and the tournament.
When you participate in a tournament, you should know the rules. The dress code is very important – like what color of dress and shoe you can wear. I noticed my problem only when I started chatting with a gentleman at the tournament. He told me I should not have worn a white shirt because white balls are used to play there. In tournaments, the color of the dress should be contrasting to the color of the ball. So, check out what is the color of the ball they will be using. Take some additional shirts with you in white, brown, blue color, if possible a pair of shoes too.
There are many important things you should be prepared of in a tournament. Table Tennis is not just a skill game, but a mind game too. Any first time player in a tournament will have nervousness – the world top players also have this problem. Being nervous will surely affect your game. You will be more nervous when you see strangers in a tournament set up. Look at the 2006 Liebherr World Cup in Paris – the match between world top 1 Wang Liqin and Ma Lin. In the game, Wang was so nervous, and he lost to Ma Lin. In tournaments, I have seen players bringing their supporters with them. Bring in your children, your wife or girl friend to the tournament. This is a great idea to ease your nervousness. Talk to other players before the start of the games – chat about the places to visit, building, life or whatever you can think of. I was the only person of Indian origin at the tournament – it was fun to talk to few people about India.
In today’s matches, some distractions have affected me tremendously. One of my opponents makes noise whenever he makes a shot. Though I could live with that, the second opponent was very tricky. He questioned my serves one time as illegal because I did not toss the ball high. I won that point; still that incident disturbed me a little. The other incident was, I called the ‘let’ very late. With a sportsman spirit, I gave the point back to her, and he won the game after two points. Never be distracted! Your opponent uses some tricks to underestimate your talents, to distract your attention to win the game. Don’t become victim to that!
Be fit, take enough sleep, take exercise, and be ready. I did not do that on both these days. I fell down on my ankle during the match, which should have avoided if I had taken some exercises. After that incident, a coach advised me the kind of shoe I use has high heals, which can contribute to fell in a fast game like this.
I knew that I was doing a mistake, still I did it. I got a new paddle just two days back – different kind of rubber for defensive play which is also hard to learn according to many advisors. I practiced the paddle only two days, before going to the tournament. I could not return any smash or any power shots which I used to take with my other paddle. Don’t change your paddle or any equipment unless you are confident of using it.
Yesterday, in the preliminaries, I had a chance to beat the advancing player in my group, and play against Utah’s top, and later go to the Group A. This tournament had 3 groups – A, B and C. In today’s round robin matches, I would say I tried to show my best performance as a defensive player. I can’t say I’m a 100% classic defensive player, neither a 100% aggressive defensive player. The first match I played, I had 8-11, 6-11, 12-13, 11-12. Such a close game, but I lost it. The second player I played against was very interesting. I was in the lead in all the four games, even one game to 7-10, but I lost the match. The points were 8-11, 11-12, 9-11, 8-11. The third match was not that interesting to tell because I lead in the beginning, but fallen back because he already won enough matches to advance.
I have tried to analyze why I can’t win the matches after even leading first for a surety of winning. There is something to blame on me. My attitude towards matches has contributed to my failures sometimes. I’m a fighter, winning the game is secondary – an attitude that has put me in trouble always. My opponents always take advantage of the attacking shots to overpower me in the last few points to win the game. Secondly, I lose the enthusiasm of winning when the game progress. This is due to my lack of coordinating various aspects of the games.
I have a lots of things to work on before the next championship match – improve my attacking and become an aggressive defensive player, improve my forehand chopping, concentrate much into the game.
