GNANASEKARAN Sathiyan

Grip
Shakehand (ultimatetabletennis, 01 Jul 2017)

Style of play
Attack (ultimatetabletennis, 01 Jul 2017)

General
CHANGE OF APPROACH
He decided to adopt a more aggressive style of play after he was eliminated in the second round at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. "Maybe, the occasion and the nerves got to me. I've only learnt lessons from it. We're going into a 2.0 version of Sathiyan. Being from a south Indian family, I come from a safe set-up. It was a very personal trait to be more consistent, to not miss the ball. That's how I've been groomed. My childhood coach used to say if the opponent plays 100 balls, you play 101 balls. It was good at that point in time, of course. We're training in such a way [in 2022] that I have to play only three balls and make sure the fourth doesn't come back. I've become a more counter-attacking aggressive player now. But to get to the next level, the top 20, top 10, I need to crack that serve and receive. It's about being aggressive there. You need to have better quality aggression with consistency. That's the key. In general, we've worked a lot on physical stability and improved my strength and power. I've been very good with speed and agility but packing it up with power in my strokes was needed and I was able to do that thanks to the [COVID-19] pandemic." (indianexpress, 27 Jun 2022)

LOSING HIS FATHER
He says that losing his father to cancer in 2015 changed the way he played. "It almost threw me back to square one. I didn't know how to react, and how to go from there. Everyone was devastated, but that's when I felt that I played as if I had nothing to lose. What more did I have to lose after losing my dad? That really changed me as a person. I started playing more aggressive table tennis, taking more risks. I had to start from scratch mentally. I worked with a mental conditioning coach to focus on the sport, and a fitness trainer and a dietitian. I started to be more professional and led a disciplined life. That was the key to making it to the [2020] Olympics." (firstpost, 20 Mar 2021)

OVERSEAS PREPARATION
He played for club teams in the Polish Superliga and Japanese T-League in preparation for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. "The level of training I have got, practising with top Japanese players, I don't think I would have got this kind of practice anywhere else. It's great preparation for the Olympics and the best I could get. When you have 20-30 top players training together, you can imagine the intensity. [Japanese players] focus on a lot of skill training, practising fine skills. Compared to other countries, who are playing their leagues and getting matches, it's tough in India. We had a national camp, but matches are important." He signed for French Pro A League club Jura Morez ahead of the 2022/23 season. "It is one of the top leagues and a highly competitive one. I will feature in about 10 games for the club and get acclimatised to the conditions there as part of my tune-up for the Paris Olympics in 2024." (olympics, 11 Feb 2022; freepressjournal, 10 Feb 2022; olympicchannel, 27 Dec 2020, 17 Oct 2020; thebridge.in, 21 Dec 2020; indianexpress男子棍术, 05 Nov 2020; espn男子棍术, 12 Oct 2020)

OCCUPATION
He has worked as a human resources executive for the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation [ONGC] in India. (Facebook profile, 28 Mar 2023; LinkedIn profile, 29 Aug 2022)

He was part of the team that won India's first ever medal in table tennis at the Asian Games, when they won bronze in the men's team event at the 2018 edition in Indonesia. (SportsDeskOnline, 20 May 2021; indiatoday, 28 Aug 2018)