On a sleepy Tuesday afternoon, Achanta Sharath Kamal walked into a press conference and announced he would be retiring at the end of this month, that the WTT Star Contender in his hometown Chennai would be his last as a professional. Finally, he can switch off the alarms he’s lived by for the past quarter of a century. He doesn’t have to use every ounce of willpower and discipline in that steel trap of a mind to just keep going. Those aching muscles and creaking joints will get some rest. And boy, have they deserved it.
Now 42, Sharath man has been playing table tennis for so long it almost feels like India has never known the sport without him. Medium-long hair tied up in a bandana, unusually massive frame hunched over the table, Achanta Sharath Kamal is Indian table tennis.
Almost endearingly, Sharath has been giving ‘I’m too old for this shi**’ vibes for long now, and I mean it in the best way possible. The thing is, like Danny Glover’s iconic Roger Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon, Sharath’s been so good at his day job, everyone just took his presence for granted, the toll it’s taken on his body and mind disregarded easily. India’s at the Olympics? Oh, at least we know Sharath Kamal will be there. The Commonwealth Games is around the corner? Well, we know ASK will win at least a couple of medals. The years went by, but that sense of permanence rarely faded, not for those watching, and not for him. Until now, that is.
His longevity, his track record, his numbers… they tell you so much. 13 Commonwealth Games medals (7 gold), 2 Asian Games bronzes, 5 Olympic Games (the last aged 42). In a sport where no one really took India seriously before Sharath, those are some proper numbers. With a career coinciding with the bursting through of the television age, he also made for the best possible ambassador of the sport in India. The bandana, the attacking game, the swagger: there was a made-for-video superstar aura to him.
The WTT Star Contender in Chennai later this month will be my final professional event, after which I will continue to serve the sport off the table. As they say, life comes a full circle! ������ pic.twitter.com/sVcg0laXlC
– Sharath Kamal OLY (@sharathkamal1) March 5, 2025
It’s the little things beyond it, though, that really paint the picture of Sharath Kamal, the champion, the Pole Star that Indian TT has navigated itself by for so many years.
Think of his last outing at that tournament he made his own – the CWG. Partnering Sreeja Akula (then 24, almost as old as Sharath’s professional career) he showed explicitly why he was Mr. TT for this country. At the table, he guided her expertly, especially during the high-pressure points. Off it, he was every bit the elder figure a young talent needs at these stages of their growth — when Sreeja was struggling to get over her tough singles’ semifinal loss, Sharath shrugged off his own weariness to immediately console her and lift her morale. The best way to get over a loss, he told her, was to win. Which was what they did. Gold in, tears out.
Or think of that one brief moment that either gets forgotten or brought up as some sort of joke: when he took a game off the great Ma Long at the Tokyo Olympics. You can see why some find it funny that this is talked about so highly — in a sport where athletes play to best-of-seven games this means nothing, on the face of it. Look just below the surface, though, and it’s everything. The Chinese, masters of the sport, had never really seen India as rivals. Things are different now — ask the Mukherjee ‘sisters’, for instance — but till Sharath had shown that even the masters bleed occasionally, India hadn’t believed. In 2025, Chinese players no longer turn up at the table to play an Indian and adapt strategies on the spot, they do video analysis, opposition research, and at times… lose.
In that last bit lies Sharath’s greatest legacy. His medals, his partnership with players across this new generation, his innate leadership, his example have left Indian TT in a place far, far better than the one he walked into. As he retires, he’s head and shoulders above his peers only in frame. Importantly, that’s not because his game has deteriorated, but because others have lifted theirs. He’s India #2 now, and the gap with those behind him is nowhere near as big as it used to be. What was once a one-man army is a team that commands respect at the big international tournaments.
And so, come the end of this month, we’ll see him in action one last time. A man who should have been too big for this sport of wiry athletes, belting forehands and finding angles that others simply don’t see, as he looks to win one final medal in a cabinet that had no right to be as filled to the brim as it is.
Achanta Sharath Kamal, one of a kind.
