How a personal tragedy shaped Sathiyan's route to Tokyo

A strap on his right shoulder, a few painkillers prior to the first match, a touch of the magic spray after the second game—G Sathiyan used all these injury-relieving methods in Doha on Thursday before beating compatriot Sharath Kamal and Pakistan’s Muhammad Rameez to win his Asian table tennis qualifying group and earn the singles spot at the Tokyo Olympics. The shoulder injury from two weeks ago had eased, but niggling issues remained. “Somehow I managed to scrape through the pain,” Sathiyan said over the phone on Friday.

That pain, however, would pale in comparison to the one he experienced in the months leading up to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Making steady progress in the national scene after his engineering days, Sathiyan was gearing up for a national ranking tournament in Guwahati in November 2015, where even a couple of wins would’ve guaranteed him a place at the Asian qualifiers for the Rio Games. The same month, Sathiyan lost his father to a prolonged battle with cancer. Giving up on his road to Rio, Sathiyan flew back home to Chennai from Guwahati.

“I was extremely devastated,” Sathiyan said.

Sathiyan, 28, recalled his father as being a towering personality at home for both him and his mother, who soon realised it was her turn to stand tall for her son’s table tennis career. “My mom told me that you’re going to go back to the sport. Going back was the only option; I had no other idea how to come out of that pain. I felt like we were all trapped.”

Sathiyan found his release on the table tennis board, where he returned after a month. “I put all my anger in my table tennis,” he said, adding after a pause, “all my energy, my emotions…everything that I had inside me. I had to vent it out somewhere.”

That “life-changing moment”, as Sathiyan defines it, also changed him as a player. The engineer, ever so calculated with his shots, began adopting a more fearless approach on the table. “I started playing with a nothing-to-lose attitude, which has come to me after my father’s demise. I play more bold, more aggressive now. And it’s been compensated with the technical and physical work done by (coach S) Raman sir. From thereon, my graph just shot up,” he said.

From hovering outside the top 150 in the world rankings before the 2016 Rio Games, Sathiyan has made the Tokyo cut as world No. 38, a few points behind the country’s top-ranked player Sharath. Sathiyan has often taken that position in the last couple of years, even breaching the top-25 barrier in May 2019, a first by an Indian paddler.

“Missing Rio was disappointing, but it increased my resilience,” Sathiyan said. “I did not want to be in the borderline anymore, struggling to make it to the Olympics. The last four years, I’ve worked a lot on my game with Raman sir to ensure that.”

Forget staying away from the borderline, Sathiyan has been charging ahead with significant strides. A month after the Rio Olympics ended, Sathiyan won the Belgium Open, his maiden ITTF world title and only the second by an Indian after Sharath. He backed it up with another ITTF title in Spain in 2017, before playing his part in the 2018 Indian TT success story by winning three medals (men’s team gold, men’s doubles silver and mixed doubles bronze) at the Commonwealth Games and a more creditable team bronze at the Asian Games.

“The Belgium Open win is very close to my heart. It came just after Rio, during a tough phase when I badly needed a boost. While that tournament made me believe that I’ve arrived at the international stage, the Asian Games made me believe that I belong there. And that I can even aim for an Olympic medal,” Sathiyan said.

The confidence also stems from a few key victories in the last couple of years, like beating Japanese sensation Harimoto Tomokazu in the 2019 Asian TT Championships and higher ranked Frenchman Simon Gauzy and Denmark’s Jonathan Groth in the 2019 ITTF Men’s World Cup, where Sathiyan reached the round of 16 on his World Cup debut.

“When you can get some big results like that, it gives you confidence that you can beat the best in the world. With the right preparation and mindset, I’ll be aiming for the medal in Tokyo. If not, I will take that experience to 2024 (Olympics),” Sathiyan said.

For now, he is relishing at the mere prospect of being in Tokyo. “Being at the Olympics has been a dream since I started playing the sport; I’ve literally grown up seeing those five rings. It’s very special to get a chance to play at the biggest stage,” he said.

It’ll also give Sathiyan a chance to keep ticking his late father’s wishlist. Three boxes have already been checked—becoming a national champion (which he did last month after beating Sharath in the final), winning a national award (he was conferred with the Arjuna Award in 2018) and qualifying for the Olympics. “The major box, which is to win an Olympic medal, still remains,” Sathiyan said.

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