Back in 2012, India's Sathiyan Gnanasekaran could not imagine being where he is now. At the time, the young engineering student from Chennai was ranked 412th in the world. A coach named Subramaniam Raman saw his potential and encouraged him to aim high. "When I started training with Raman sir back in 2012, he told me that he was looking to make the top 50 rankings," recalls Gnanasekaran. "I laughed at that time because it sounded really funny to me." It was no joke, however. Under Raman's guidance, Gnanasekaran not only trained harder but incorporated physical, nutritional and even psychological training into his regimen. Perhaps even more impressively, he also managed to complete his engineering degree. "We brought a lot of sports science into the game with proper process and techniques, and that journey has been excellent," said Gnanasekaran, who in June of this year became the first player from India to crack the top 25 in the ITTF world rankings. "It’s a great privilege to be the first Indian to break into the top 25 in international table tennis, but I think this is just the beginning," said Gnanasekaran. "We have been working constantly to be there and I think this will set a good benchmark for the future table tennis generation." One of the many highlights of Gnanasekaran's year came in September at the ITTF-ATTU Asian Table Tennis Championships. There in Indonesia, the Indian ace caused quite a stir when he dispatched with Japanese teen phenom Tomokazu Harimoto, world #5, in straight games. He backed up his phenomenal outing this November at the ITTF Men's World Cup in Chengdu, China. Seeded third in his qualifying group, he upset world #22 Simon Gauzy of France and Denmark's #24 Jonathan Groth to advance to the main draw. For a year without any major wins, Gnanasekaran and his Indian national team can point to a lot of positives. After drifting rudderless following the sudden resignation of coach Massimo Costantini last year, the team is now back on track with a new coach Dejan Papic. Given a one-year contract to guide the team toward the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Papic is leading the team on a world training tour, with stops in Republic of Korea, Germany and Portugal. "With the world ranking here, I have virtually qualified for the singles but we want to make the cut in the team qualification event as well because India has never played the Olympics as a team," said Gnanasekaran. "We are confident of making the cut as soon as possible," he continued. "Not only making it to the Olympics but winning a medal is also very exciting." While he has already made historic strides, don't think for a second that the sporting scientist is resting on his laurels. "I’ve been really enjoying sport and looking forward to getting into single-digit ranking," said Gnanasekaran, who no doubt is already engineering his way toward his next goal.

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