Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 13 (IANS) Former table tennis world doubles champion Peter Karlsson will inaugurate country’s first national academy in Indore in June.

Karlsson, the brand ambassador of Indian table tennis equipment maker Stag, will train the players for a week in the presence of two permanent foreign coaches whose names are yet to be finalised by the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI).

The initiative by Stag is taken in consultation with the TTFI. Karlsson is also a coach with the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).

Mehta, a former national champion, welcomed the move for setting up the long-awaited national academy.

“I hope this academy will produce world-class players. Someone like a Peter inaugurating the centre will boost the players and provide the much needed publicity to our sport,” Mehta, who is best known for his four silver and four bronze medals in the Commonwealth championships, told IANS.

Abhay Prashal Indoor Stadium in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, is the venue for the academy. It will be the first national academy for the sport in the country. The existing one in Ajmer is accessible only to players of the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB).

Stag chairman Rakesh Kohli said the move will help in popularising the sport in our cricket crazy nation.

“Peter will be speaking to the players and sharing his tremendous knowledge of the game,” Kohli told IANS.

With the infrastructure at its disposal, TTFI will organise camps thoughout the year for the players starting from the cadet (under-12) to the junior level (under-17) and the senior national team.

The TTFI, however, needs to act quickly on the issue of coaches that will be deputed in the academy. The sporting body failed to rope in Italian Massimo Constantini for the second time. Constantnini coached India from November 2008 till the Asian Games last year.

“Constantini has taken up another assignment in the US so he won’t be available. We still have a month to hire the coaches. The ITTF will give us some names and we will finalise accordingly. They will be here well in time before the academy starts,” TTFI secretary-general Dhanraj Choudhary told IANS.