Veteran Table Tennis players Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra will lead the Indian challenge at the 26th Asian Table Tennis Championships 2023 to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea from 3-10 September 2023.
The 26th edition of the Asian Table Tennis Championships is also a qualification tournament for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
The India men’s team has been seeded third at the Pyeongchang event while the women’s team has been seeded fifth.
India has sent a 10-member team consisting of five men and women players each . It includes 41-year-old Sharath Kamal and world No. 61 Harmeet Desai. They are currently the only Indian male table tennis players to be ranked in the top 100 in men’s singles.
Manika Batra is currently ranked 36 in women’s singles and is the highest-ranked singles player from India.
India has so far won only four bronze medals in the Asian Table Tennis Championships. India won three bronze medals at the last edition in Doha.
The Asian Table Tennis Championship is organised every two years. The first Asian Table Tennis Championship was held in Singapore in 1952 .
Since the 9th Asian Table Tennis Championship ,held in Jakarta 1968, the event has been organised every two years.
The 25th Asian Table Tennis Championship was held in Doha, Qatar in 2021.