T League news: Okayama Rivets rope in Indian table tennis star G Sathiyan

What's the story?

Star Indian paddler, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran has become the first player of Indian origin to join Japan's premier table tennis league, T League. Okayama Rivets roped him in for their future matches.

The background

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran has been one of India's most successful male paddlers. The 27-year-old from Chennai has achieved a highest world ranking of 24 which amply proves his skills and talent. He grabbed the headlines by topping his group and reaching the pre-quarter finals of the ITTF World Cup 2019. Sathiyan had also won the gold medal of the men's singles competition at ITTF Challenger tournament in 2017.

His consistent performances earned him a deal with German table tennis club ASV Grunwettersbasch. Last month, he led his club to the German Cup which captured the attention of the Japanese T League franchise.

The heart of the matter

The four-team Japanese competition also features TT Saitama, Kinoshita Meister Tokyo and Ryukyu Asteeda along with Okayama Rivets. Speaking to PTI on Saturday (8th February), G Sathiyan made his decision to move to Japan public. He said:

“I made the decision to move out of Germany as Japan is much better for practice and the level is higher than Europe.”

The Indian paddler will now play in the same league with the world number five Harimoto Tomokazu. Apart from Harimoto, there are a plethora of big names from the table tennis world who will take part in the tourney.

What's next?

It will be intriguing to see how G Sathiyan performs against the top stars in the T League. He has been in great touch recently thus, the Indian fans would expect him to make an instant impact in the Japanese table tennis tournament.