Sutirtha MUKHERJEE

She was backed by her mother - who had pushed her into the sport and had been her pillar of strength throughout - and coaches, former player Soumyadeep Roy and national champion Poulomi Ghatak.  

Sutirtha Mukherjee marked her return on the national scene with a title win at the 2017 senior national table tennis championships.

Her good form also saw Sutirtha Mukherjee make the Indian team for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, winning a historic gold in the women’s team event. The Indian table tennis player, however, missed out on a women’s doubles medal after losing the bronze match. 

Amid all the success, she rose from 502 to 95 in a year's time on the international table tennis rankings chart. In 2019, Sutirtha Mukherjee won her second national title.

The 2019 season also saw Sutirtha Mukherjee gain some valuable experience playing against quality opposition in Ultimate Table Tennis, a franchise-based TT league in India. 

Her wins over the much higher-ranked Petrissa Solja of Germany and Chinese Taipei’s Cheng I-Ching helped Sutirtha Mukherjee grow in confidence. It helped when she stunned the world No. 19 Bernadette Szocs of Romania at the ITTF World Team Qualification just before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sutirtha Mukherjee kept herself busy working on her game under the guidance of Soumyadeep Roy during the pandemic.

The hard work paid off with her appearance at the Tokyo Olympics and with her continuous rise as one of the top table tennis players from India, Sutirtha Mukherjee will only look to scale new heights in the coming years.