Table Tennis | How the Ayhika and Sutirtha pair conquered Tunis!

Naihati is a small municipality in Kolkata, famous for being the birthplace of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, the author of the National song, Vande Mataram.

Going places: With their recent exploits Ayhika and Sutirtha jumped 18 places to be ranked World No. 18 in doubles, and their next target will be to breach the top-10.
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World Table Tennis

In a significant event, two young sportswomen from Naihati imprinted their names on the world table tennis map.

On a humid evening at the Salle Omnisport de Rades Indoor Stadium in Tunis (Tunisia), the Indian duo of Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee, created history by claiming its maiden tour title in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender event.

Being childhood friends and having started their career under the guidance of renowned coach Mihir Ghosh, the pair has gained prominence in a short time and promises more, given the way it has performed in 2022-23.

Ayhika and Sutirtha have done reasonably well as a duo, reaching the final of the WTT Contender in Muscat (Oman) in March last year and making the quarterfinals in the WTT Star Contender in Goa, which underlines their quick progress.

Given the quality of players in Tunis, Ayhika and Sutirtha trained hard together for more than two months under the watchful eyes of former National champions and husband-wife pair of Soumyadeep Roy and Paulomi Ghatak at the Soumyadeep Roy TT Academy in Kolkata. Their hardwork and planning paid rich dividends.

“We are happy to win our first title. Our focus was on doubles. We did practise regularly, working on minute details, and we are happy that our hard work paid off,” says Ayhika, speaking to The Hindu from Tunis airport, where she was waiting to get the next flight to Zagreb, along with Sutirtha.

It was the contrasting personalities of the two paddlers that partly worked in their favour. Sutirtha is more serious while Ayhika is jovial and fun. “Ayhika is a joy to play with. Whenever I am under pressure, she ‘cools’ me with words like ‘it’s alright’, ‘we can do it’. And just her smile is enough to keep me focused,” says Sutirtha.

It’s not just their personality, their game styles, too, are as different as chalk and cheese. Sutirtha uses short pimple on her forehand while Ayhika employs funny rubber on her backhand. So, it does help to confuse the opponents. During counter-attacks, Ayhika slows the pace down and ensures that the rival pair, too, does the same with her anti-spin rubber which the opponents find difficult to return. “Sutirtha is very good on her forehand and backhand attack. Our different playing styles did help in the win,” insists Ayhika.

The pair created quite a stir in the tournament, beating the top three seeds on it’s way to the title.

It started with a facile win over the Americans, Amy Wang and Rachel Sumo, before proceeding to scalp the third seeds from Taipei, Huang Yi-Hua and Chen Szu-Yu, in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the Indians created the biggest upset, by edging out the top seeds, Jeon Jihee and Shin Yubin of Korea, who were the silver medallist in the 2023 World championships in Durban.

In the final, the Indians were confidence personified not allowing pressure get the better of them, by beating the second seeds from Japan, Miyuu Kihara and Miwa Harimoto.

“If you see, we didn’t start well in the first two matches. Even in the final, I told Sutirtha, ‘Let’s start the way we have started. Even if we lose the first or second game, let’s be focused. But we won the first two games, and the third game we lost focus after 4-4. And in the fourth, when the scores were tied at 9-9, Sutirtha’s service point was wonderful. It was our self confidence that was the key,” says Ayhika.

In fact, Ayhika and Sutirtha’s first WTT tournament in Muscat, as a pair, was a revelation as it reached the final, beating the top-seeded Puerto Rico pair of Adriana Diaz and Melanie Diaz in the first round. Ayhika and Sutirtha went on to lose to the Chinese pair of Rui Zhang and Man Kuai in the summit clash. Interestingly, the duo of Manika Batra and Archana Kamath was seeded second there.

It was after that tournament that the pair started to know their capabilities and realised that they need to train more together and practise with diligence if they have to do well at the international level.

Though both are primarily singles players — Ayhika is ranked No. 2 in India and 118 in the world, while Sutirtha is India’s No. 4 in India and 116 in the world — they are trying to play both singles and doubles in a bid to get their ranking up, with the Asian Games and Paris Olympics coming up. “We want to perform well as a pair in WTT events and qualify for the Asian Games and Asian championships,” says Sutirtha.

In fact, after the Tunis crown, the pair has jumped 18 places to be ranked 18 in the world, five places behind the Manika-Archana duo.

Their coach Soumyadeep says the need to focus more on doubles became clearer after the WTT Star Contender in Goa where the pair reached the last eight. “That was the trigger to make them train harder,” says Soumyadeep, while adding, “Their combination is good because of their different playing styles. With that in mind, we started working. Their patience and aggression ensured they did well in Tunis.”

In the run-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, Soumyadeep says Ayhika-Sutirtha’s singles rankings will be important. “So, they need to balance both singles and doubles. They have four more tournaments this year. They can move further up the rankings,” he says.

Mamata Prabhu, India’s coach at Tunis, says the different playing styles and rubbers Ayhika and Sutirtha employ had a devastating effect on the opponents. “Sutirtha has plain rubber on backhand, and short pimple on her forehand. Ayhika, on the other hand, has short pimple on forehand and anti-spin (Gorilla brand) on her backhand. With four different rubbers, we could employ ‘n’ number of strategies. We used them effectively against the Koreans and Japanese in the semifinals and final, respectively,” she says.

Ayhika and Sutirtha, who are looking for sponsors, are now in Zagreb (Croatia) playing in the qualifying rounds in singles while being placed in the main draw in doubles.

Their target will now be to breach the World doubles top-10. After a heart-warming show in Tunis, there is, definitely, room for optimism and hope.