Before the Indian team left for the Asian Table Tennis Championships, Soumyadeep Roy gave another verbal reminder to his trainees Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee about what they were out to achieve in Astana, Kazakhstan.
A couple of years ago, this thought would have been rather audacious bordering on being fanciful. Now, it carried a more realistic ring. The Mukherjees proved it as well, signing off with a bronze medal on Sunday after their 4-11, 9-11, 8-11 defeat to Japan’s Miwa Harimoto and Miyuu Kihara.
To think that they ought to feel a touch disappointed in not getting past the Japanese pair — they had defeated them in the past — and grabbing a better medal could also well sum up India’s overall campaign in the elite continental competition.
India will bring home three medals, all bronze, in a significant jump from the solitary podium finish in the previous edition last year (men’s team). The women contributed to a couple of firsts, in the team event as well as in doubles. Apart from powerhouse China, India were the only nation to pocket medals across both the team events.
