New Delhi:
After defending the national title, Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal is now aiming to break into top-50 in world ranking by the end of this year, during which he will also carry a millions hope in 2010 Commonwealth Games here.
Now world number 73, Sharath pulled off an upset in the recent Qatar Open in Dubai by taming the world number 24, Chen Weixing of Austria in a first-round clash and that has made him quite confident of achieving the target.
"I have been wanting to break into the top-50 for a while now and hope I can do that this year. I did pretty well in the Qatar Open, beating the (world) number 24 Weixing and I think, that will make an impact on my ranking," Sharath said.
Speaking from Kuwait, where he has got direct entry to the singles main draw in the ongoing Kuwait Open, Sharath said: "I am expecting some good performance here and I guess, after the Kuwait Open my ranking would increase considerably."
The Chennai paddler also welcomed Table Tennis Federation of India's decision to give as many as 18 foreign tours to the players on run-up to the Commonwealth Games and said some good performance would help them secure a better seedings in the Delhi Games.
"Actually at the moment we are seeded number three among the teams but with a lot of these (international) tournaments, I guess, we would be seeded number two at least and could have a better draw for the Games," Sharath said.
"Also, there has been a lot of improvement during the last one or two years due to these foreign exposures as we are getting to practice with a lot of different players all across the world and playing a lot more international matches," Sharath added.
According to the new annual schedule, Indians will take part in 12 Pro Tours, including the Indian Open, which will be held in the Commonwealth Games venue for table tennis, Yamuna Sports Complex from April 1-5.
"We have been thinking about the Delhi event for the last four years since the Melbourne Games in 2006. Everything has been planned since then and we are working towards our target. All I can say is that we are putting our best efforts and are hoping for the best," said the lanky paddler.
Sharath also has no qualm to admit that he had to overcome much stiffer challenge to retain his national title this year in Guwahati and put the credit on the young emerging stars, who he feels, posses the wherewithal to become big names in the days to come.
"It was much tougher this time than the earlier years as all the others have improved very well during the last one year due to hard training and a lot of foreign exposures," he said.
"There is a lot of talents in India and I guess, players like Sanil Shetty, Harmit Desai and Soumyajit Ghosh can make it really big for India," he added.