Super Mouma, 38, beats Diya Chitale, who’s half her age at National Games

In April, nearly three years after giving beginning, 38-year-old paddler Mouma Das reached the ladies’s singles remaining of the TT Senior Nationals. Remarkably, she had skilled for under 15 days in that whole period.

Mouma was at it once more on the thirty sixth National Games being held in Gujarat. Using her wealth of expertise and all her reserve vitality, she beat 19-year-old Diya Chitale, who represented India on the recently-held Commonwealth Games. The win gave West Bengal an important 2-1 lead over Maharashtra within the girls’s group occasion, which in the end noticed them triumph 3-1.

The win additionally gave Mouma a newfound hope, one which will appear farfetched however for somebody who has come again so strongly from a three-year break on the age of 38, it’s tough to disregard. The dream of getting again into the Indian group.

After giving beginning in December 2019, Mouma had instructed herself that she would get again to taking part in the game professionally inside six months’ time. After all, she had a terrific 2018, profitable the Commomwealth Games girls’s group gold and silver in girls’s doubles, partnering Manika Batra. In 2020 although, the world got here to a standstill with the Covid-19 pandemic and Mouma bought busy taking care of her little lady.

In early 2021, she once more backed herself to make a comeback, however with the Omicron variant of the virus spreading, she needed to shelve her plans. This 12 months, she instructed herself that if she was ever going to get again to the game, it needed to be on the Senior Nationals which was held in Shillong.

And with no actual coaching, only a few gymnasium periods and shadow desk tennis follow, Mouma went for the event with nothing to lose. That nothing-to-lose perspective, she says, helped her tremendously, and was the first motive, she says, why she made it to the ultimate of the event.

“Everyone was tensed since the Commonwealth Games was approaching. I had nothing to lose. Though I wasn’t physically fit at all, I just stuck to the basics and played out the games,” she says.
While she is aware of she has the sport to again herself, it’s the bodily facet that she has been fighting essentially the most. It’s not that she doesn’t wish to work on it, she merely doesn’t get the time, she says.

“I never expected to be so busy. I really don’t know how moms who are professional sportspersons manage to get time to exercise,” she says.

So what’s her day by day schedule like?
“Well, my daughter takes an hour to eat breakfast, an hour for lunch, and an hour for dinner. Then there’s snack time in between. Oh yes, I have to cook the food too,” she says with fun.

“I have to plan my day around her schedule. For now, I train for a couple of hours in the morning and that’s it. Thankfully I have a very supportive husband and family who know that table tennis is my life and are willing to do anything to support my career,” she says.

Making it to the Indian group is not going to be a simple job for her, and he or she is aware of it. For one, there are many children ready to interrupt into the group.

“I feel like in the three years that I’ve been away, the level of TT in the country has just gone up tremendously. Earlier you could slow down the pace of the game, but now everyone’s game has become aggressive.”

So does she actually suppose she will be able to get again into the nationwide group?

“Right now I have to push my body but at the same time be mindful of injuries. An injury could be a huge setback for my career. As soon as I get back for these National Games, I’m going to work with a physio and trainer. I think I have to reach the finals of a few national-level tournaments and then see what I can do. I’m very excited,” she says.