Baboor still looking for elusive Olympic win

Sydney: For Chetan Baboor, the Olympic Games present one long list of defeats. The 26-year-old Bangalorean is no doubt the only Indian table tennis player to have gone for three Olympic Games - dating back to 1992 -but he also holds the unenviable record of not having won a single match in three appearances so far.

The four-time Indian National champion, who plays professionally for a Swedish Club lost all his three matches in Barcelona in 1992 and then again failed to win any of his three matches in Atlanta four years ago.

This time in Sydney, placed in Group 'C:' Baboor lost his opening match to Petr Korbel of the Czech Republic, a losing semi-finalist in 1996. For a brief period as Baboor won the opening game at 21-13, it seemed he might finally break that hoodoo.

But, Korbel stormed back into the game winning the next three games at 17, 16 and 14 to win the first of three pool matches. The players are all divided into 16 pools of four players each and the winner in each advances to theround of 16, after which the tournament becomes a knock-out.

Chetan Baboor had lost his first doubles league match on Saturday. Baboor and his partner, S Raman, are the reigning Commonwealth champions in doubles.

In the singles clash, Baboor after flattering in the first game was complete out of his depth. Both his backhand and serves let him down. Apart from the first game, there was no time when Baboor held some kind of an advantage.

In fact, Korbel, who is also playing his third Olympics, controlled the match and by the third game was almost toying around. Baboor, whose finest career win was the one over 1996 Olympic champion Liu Guoliang in the Asian Top 12 tournament in 1999, still has two more matches to play, in which he can still hope to register his first Olympic win.

India Abroad News Service