Personalities

- Nisha Millet
- Vijay Bharadwaj
- Aparna Popat
- P. Gopichand
- Mahesh Bhupathi
- Anil Kumble
- P.Anil Kumar

Young Achievers

- Punkaj Advani
- Shilpa Sequeira
- Neema Joyappa
- B.N. Chandrika

Interview

- Roger Binny
- M Azharuddin
- Raman Subba Row
- Ashok Shandilya

Review

Sports History

Table Tennis

Though the origins of the game are not very clear, it is believed that table tennis is an adaptation of either Lawn Tennis or 'Real' Tennis as an indoor sport during the 1870s. A form of indoor tennis, the game was improvised in establishments like messes, university, college and school common rooms. It was initially played with cork balls introduced by an Englishman Charles Barter. This was replaced by celluloid balls which were used in America and brought to England by the British athlete Gibbs and the game was called 'ping pong' because of the noise made by the celluloid balls. The game was included in the Olympic agenda only in 1988 though the world championships have been staged regularly since 1958. It is being featured in the Asian Games since the 1958 Tokyo Asiad.

To the late K. Nagaraja of Karnataka goes the distinction of having been the only Indian to have reached the quarter-finals of a world championship at Tokyo.

The first national championship was held in 1938 and M. Ayub emerged as the champion. The best ever international Table Tennis Federation rankings are Farokh Khodaiji's 28th in the men's section in 1967 and Indu Puri's 63rd in 1985. Indu Puri was also ranked 2nd in the Commonwealth and 8th in the Asian sections. Her best ever performance was when she beat Park Yung Sun of North Korea, then reigning world champion in the Asian championships at Kuala Lumpur in 1978. The game is a popular recreation sport as well among children and adults especially in urban centers of the country.

Just before the formation of the international body, India was unofficially ranked second in the world with Hungary claiming the top spot. England and Austria were considered third and fourth respectively.

In fact, the players who represented the country in nine out of 12 World Championships from 1927 to 1938 were Indians who did not live in India.

Even before the formation of the Indian Table Tennis Federation in 1938, the All-India and Inter-provincial championships were held in Calcutta. It was in 1939 that a truly Indian team was selected to participate in the World Championships scheduled to be held in Cairo. Top world players also toured the country giving the Indians some exposure to the game. India hosted, the World Championships for the first time in 1952 at Bombay. The emergence of Japan as a force to reckon with during the Bombay world meet, indirectly gave birth to the formation of the Table Tennis Federation of Asia, which began to stage a biennial Asian Championships.

The Rajkumari sports coaching scheme led to the emergence of young and talented players and in the 1957 Stockholm World Championships India was promoted front category 2 to category 1. India was also officially ranked 10th out of 75 nations then affiliated to the International Federation. In the same year India tied with Vietnam for the first place in the Asian Championships held in Manila. The players who earned high reputations during the 1950s include K. Nagaraja, K. Jayant, Sultana and Jayant Vohra. Some of them went on extensive tours of the continent and the US.