Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (born 8 January 1993) is an Indian table tennis player, who is the highest ranked Indian, currently ranked at 39 in the world as of November 2022. He was a member of the Indian team that won back to back Gold medals in 2018 & 2022 Commonwealth Games . In May 2019, Sathiyan attained his career best World ranking of 24 and became the first Indian paddler ever to break into the World Top-25 ITTF rankings. He became the first Indian paddler to sign a contract with Okayama Rivets for the Japanese T-league. He has currently signed up with JURA MOREZ for the French PRO-A league. He is an employee of ONGC & currently being supported by the

GoSports Foundation The GoSports Foundation (GSF) is an independent, donor-funded non-profit venture, working towards securing funds and professional expertise for some of India's junior Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Established in 2008, it has worked with nume ...

through the

Rahul Dravid Rahul Sharad Dravid (; born 11 January 1973) is an Indian cricket coach and former captain of the Indian national team, currently serving as its head coach. Prior to his appointment to the senior men's national team, Dravid was the Head of ...

Athlete Mentorship Programme.

Achievements

Sathiyan announced himself in the world stage in Table Tennis when he won the ITTF Challenge Belgium Open title in the men's singles category in September 2016. This was his first ITTF pro tour title. In the final match played at De Haan in Belgium, he defeated the local player Nuytinck Cedric with a 4-0 score in the final - with 15-13, 11-6, 11-2, 17-15. With this victory, he became the first Indian table tennis player to win an ITTF event on European soil. 2017 had been a special year for Sathiyan where he won gold in the ITTF Challenge - Spanish Open, in Almeria (2017) in the men's singles category and created history by becoming the first Indian Table Tennis player ever to win two ITTF pro tour titles. In April 2018, he won three medals in his debut Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast, Australia. In August 2018, He also played an important role by winning both his matches against Japan in the Men Team category quarterfinals and won a historic bronze medal at the Asian Games 2018 held at Jakarta for the first time ever after a gap of 60 years. He was conferred with Arjuna Award in the year 2018. In September 2019, he pulled off the biggest win of his career by defeating the Japanese prodigy Tomokazu Harimoto in straight sets at the Asian TT Championships 2019. In the same event, he also gave a stellar performance by becoming the first Indian ever after a gap of 43 years to reach the Quarterfinals in Men Singles category. On November 29, 2019 Sathiyan made his debut World Cup appearance and defeated higher-ranked French player

Simon Gauzy Simon Gauzy (born 25 October 1994) is a French table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table ...

11-13, 9-11, 11-8, 14-12, 7-11, 11-5, 11-8 before beating world number 24

Jonathan Groth Jonathan Groth (born 9 November 1992) is a Danish table tennis player. He competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the men's singles event, in which he was eliminated in the third round by Ma Long Ma Long (; born 20 October 1988) is a Chinese ...

of Denmark 11-9, 7-11, 11-5, 11-6, 11-2, to top his group and reach the round of 16 in 2019 ITTF Men's World Cup. The world number 30 G Sathiyan, went down 1-4 (11-7, 8-11, 5-11, 9-11, 8-11) to

Timo Boll Timo Boll (, ; born 8 March 1981) is a German professional table tennis player, who currently plays for Borussia Düsseldorf. He is ranked second in the German Table Tennis National League, and fifteen in the ITTF world rankings as of October 20 ...

in the pre-quarters. In 2021, Sathiyan competed in the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

in Tokyo. In the

2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England bet ...

, Sathiyan again won three medals with Gold in Men Team, Silver in Men Doubles and also a Bronze in Men Singles. G. Sathiyan wins bronze in TT Men’s singles.

Awards

*Arjuna Award 2018 *TOISA Table Tennis player of the year award 2017 (Jury choice)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gnanasekaran, Sathiyan Indian male table tennis players Living people Racket sportspeople from Chennai Table tennis players at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic table tennis players of India Table tennis players at the 2018 Commonwealth Games Table tennis players at the 2022 Commonwealth Games Commonwealth Games medallists in table tennis Commonwealth Games gold medallists for India Commonwealth Games silver medallists for India Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for India Tamil sportspeople 1993 births Table tennis players at the 2018 Asian Games Asian Games medalists in table tennis Asian Games bronze medalists for India Medalists at the 2018 Asian Games Recipients of the Arjuna Award 20th-century Indian people 21st-century Indian people