Sisterly bronze: Eye-catching Mukherjees get historic medal
Rohit Mahajan
Hangzhou, October 2
Mukherjee & Mukherjee, sounding more like a law firm, looking more like regular university students than lean, mean athletic machines, today achieved a feat never achieved before — they won bronze in the women’s doubles in table tennis.
Mukherjee & Mukherjee were overjoyed; Mukherjee & Mukherjee were sad, too. They had shocked world champions Chen Meng and Yidi Wang of China in the quarterfinals on Saturday; this, surely, was a sign of things to come — they could well fight for gold, or at least assure themselves of a silver by winning the semifinal today, they must have thought.
Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee, one year apart in age, fought hard in the semifinals but the task proved too much to do against the North Korean pair of Suyong Cha and Sugyong Pak, and they lost 11-7 8-11 11-7 8-11 9-11 11-5 2-11.
The Mukherjees are sisters in name only; but they’ve known each other since childhood, for 20 years, and communicate as well as real sisters. They stand out, too. In a stadium full of slightly-built players from east Asian countries, the Indian girls are quite conspicuous — Ayhika is certainly not all muscle, while no one would suspect Sutirtha of being an international athlete. But they’re good, quite skilful, skilful enough to shock a world champion team on their day.
Then, they have different kinds of rubbers on their bats — all four sides of their two bats are different. Sutirtha’s bat has pimpled rubber on the forehand side, a normal one on the backhand side; Ayhika’s bat has pimpled rubber on the forehand side, anti-spin one on the backhand. Due to this, the behaviour, the trajectory, the spin on the ball as it makes it way from their bats to the other end can be quite confounding.
Today, the North Koreans were confounded, just as the Chinese were two days ago. Having drawn level at 3-3, the Mukherjees decided to shun the wait-and-watch strategy and go for the kill in the final game. It proved to be a fatal mistake. In attack, they made errors, hitting long or wide; at the same time, the North Koreans found their range. Out of the blue, after dominating the sixth game for 11-5, the Indians were under the cosh and 0-4 down. Their faces fell, they seemed nervous, as if they feared the worst. In minutes, the worst did happen.
“They lost the first few points, came under pressure and went for winners in an attempt to claim points. They conceded a big lead and could not make a comeback,” said coach Mamta Prabhu.
Almost inevitably, a question was asked about Sutirtha’s weight; is it possible that if she were lean, she would have been an even more skilful player?
“Being fit is absolutely necessary, but then some players have a certain body type,” said coach Mamta. “Table tennis is also a game of skills, so if you are gifted and have the skills, I don’t see any problem. Sutirtha is very quick at the table and has very good hand-eye coordination.”
This, it must be said, is absolutely true — this is what made Sutirtha, in the company of another Mukherjee, the first Indian pair to win a women’s doubles medal at the Asiad, improbably though it may appear when you see her first.
