He said the time was right to strengthen and popularise table tennis in India, especially with 27 Indian paddlers currently in top 100 and 17 of them in top 50 in the world rankings.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Tuesday
Cricket was the first to hit the restart button in Indian sports with the IPL, albeit on foreign shores of UAE, in a strict bio-secure bubble.
Indian athletes, including the boxers and shooters, hit the ground running as they started their pre-Olympic training, hoping to live up to massive expectations in the pandemic-hit Games in Tokyo.
President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the country in congratulating paddler Bhavinaben Patel for winning a historic silver medal, India's first, in the ongoing Paralympic Games in Tokyo on Sunday.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
Indian women paddlers stunned fancied Thailand 3-0, while their male counterparts edged past Iran 3-2 to enter the Asian Table Tennis Championship quarterfinals in Macau.
Ageing like fine wine, Sharath Kamal has set his sights on yet another shot at the Olympics, his confidence boosted by a grand showing at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
India's men paddlers entered the final of the team championship at the 19th Commonwealth Championships, beating England, while the women went down fighting to the same opponents, in the semi-finals, in Delhi, on Tuesday. While the men prevailed 3-2, the women's team lost 2-3 and had to settle for the bronze medal.
Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth won their respective singles matches, while Satwik Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa triumphed in the mixed doubles to help India outclass Malaysia in the final and clinch the gold medal in the Mixed Team badminton gold medal match at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
"Bhavina wants to meet Tendulkar and show the medal to him. He is her idol. We are trying to contact him and fix a meeting once we return to India," husband Nikul Patel said.
Promising paddler Sutirtha Mukherjee led Indian girls to a gold medal finish while the boys had to settle for a silver in the team championship of the Slovak Junior Open at Senec, Slovakia.
Olympian Neha Aggarwal and Soumi Mondal moved into the semi-finals after thumping victories in the table tennis competition at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune on Wednesday. In the boys' singles, sixth seed Soumyajit Ghosh and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran also stormed into the semi-final league.
Manika Batra and Mouma Das fought hard before going down against defending champions Feng Tianwei and Yu Mengyu to settle for a silver medal in the women's doubles, a first ever for India in the Commonwealth Games.
Star paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal and World champion boxer Nikhat Zareen have been named India's flagbearers for the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Monday.
Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal was among three Indians who qualified for the men's singles quarter-finals, even as the Indian women's challenge in the individual events ended in the Commonwealth Games Table Tennis competition on Monday. Besides Sharath, A Amalraj and Soumyadeep Roy also entered the last-eight stage.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday
Sharath Kamal and Gnanasekaran Sathiyan was outsmarted by familiar foes Paul Drinkhall and Liam Pitchford of England in the men's doubles final at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Sunday.
Indian table tennis players Soumyajit Ghosh and Manika Batra booked their Olympic tickets by winning their respective groups in the Asian Qualifiers in Hong Kong.
Third seeded Indian pair of Harmeet Desai and Soumyajit Ghosh went down in the doubles final of the GAC Group ITTF World Tour Australian Open table tennis tournament in Gold Coast, Australia, on Saturday.
40-year-old Sharath showed that age was just a number.
Indian men and women experienced contrasting fortunes at the World Team Table Tennis Championships as the former blanked Nigeria 3-0 but the eves went down 2-3 to Australia.
In both the matches, Sathiyan staged a strong fightback after losing the first two games.
Family members and friends of paddler Bhavina Patel broke into the traditional 'garba' dance, burst firecrackers and smeared each other with 'gulal' at her native Sundhiya village in Gujarat's Mehsana district to celebrate her historic silver medal at the Paralympic Games.
The Indian contingent, comprising 17 players and officials, is scheduled to participate at the ITTF World Tour Australian Open starting in Melbourne on Monday.
India's Nishad Kumar won the silver medal in men's high jump T46 event at the Tokyo Paralympics on Sunday.
India's campaign in table tennis competitions in the Asian Games came to a disappointing end on Thursday with star paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj bowing out in the pre-quarterfinals of the men's singles event at the Guangzhou Gymnasium.
Teenager Abhishek Yadav ensured India of a bronze medal at the 2nd Asian Youth Games in Nanjing, China, after he got the better of Malaysia's Dunley Foo to enter the men's singles table tennis semi-finals, on Monday.
After scripting history with a silver medal at the Tokyo Paralympics on Sunday, paddler Bhavinaben Patel said nerves played a role in her defeat in the gold medal match against World No 1 Zhou Ying.
'If I were to say, I had the best vegetarian food in my life in Vietnam, nobody would believe me.' 'When I proclaimed this to my friends, they didn't believe me. I had to show them the pictures and make them drool!!'
A former world champion, Sindhu is one of the favourites to win the women's singles gold medal in Birmingham, having won the silver and bronze in the last two editions at Gold Coast and Glasgow.
In the first singles, Sharath went down 7-11, 14-12, 3-11,9-11 against Clarence.
While a billion hearts would pray for all the participants to do well, all eyes would be set on the duo of Deepika Kumari/Atanu Das, the four shooters and Mirabai Chanu to open India's medals count.
Justice Rekha Palli, who was hearing Batra's petition alleging that the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) was carrying out its selection processes in a non-transparent manner and targeting certain individuals such as herself, said that based on the committee's report, she would consider the issue of appointing an administrator to run the national sports body.
Star paddler Sharath Kamal continued his sensational run to reach the finals of both the men's doubles and mixed doubles events and assure India of at least two more medals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmimgham on Saturday.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Monday
Sathiyan, who has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, had donated Rs 1.25 lakh to the Centre and Tamil Nadu government in 2020 for their fight against the coronavirus.
India won three gold and one bronze medal from the Commonwealth Youth Games on Wednesday. After Deepika Patel, in the 10m Air Pistol (women), and Lakshya Bansal, in the 25m Pistol (men), bagged gold medals, Asher Noria added the third gold from the men's double trap event, while Rushad Damania won the bronze in the men's 50m Rifle 3 Position.
India's Mouma Das bagged a silver medal in the mixed doubles event while entering the semi-finals of the singles and doubles competition, to round off a sparkling day for the hosts at the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships in New Delhi.
Badminton legend Prakash Padukone was bestowed with the Lifetime achievement award at the Sportstar Aces awards function in Mumbai.
