Kamlesh Metha

Table Tennis has been a great provider for Kamlesh Navinchandra Mehta. It has given him almost everything in life, His wife,Monalisa Barua was a national champion and an Arjuna Award winner in addition to being the captain of the Indian team.

Kamlesh himself was the captain of the Indian team from 1982 to 1989 and was the highest ranked Indian player in Asia, Commonwealth and the World. And what is more, he has left a record, which will be difficult to beat. He has played in the final of the National Championships on eleven occasions between 1981 and 1994, winning the title eight times. He was runners-up on other three occasions.

Nicknamed Kamu, Kamlesh Mehta was born in Bombay on 1 May 1960.After schooling from St. Joseph's Wadala branch, he went to R.A. Podar College in Mumbai to graduate in Commerce and is presently a senior manager with Dena Bank. He picked up the racket when he was ten, and that too for purely recreational purposes, A liver ailment set back his career for a couple of years and it was only in 1974 that he took up the game again.

Kamlesh has represented India in seven World Championships, eight Asian Championships, two Asian Games, six Commonwealth Championships, four South Asian Federation Games, two Olympic Games and many other official and friendly competitions in India and abroad. His best performance came in the SAF Games in 1991 at Colombo where he won seven Gold and four Silver Medals.

The next best showing came at the Commonwealth Championships. In the six editions of competition at this level, Kamlesh has won four Silver and four Bronze Medals, the highest tally by any Indian player. He has the distinction of winning the World Bank Championship in the Isle of Man (UK) in 1989. He won all the four Gold Medals at the Pentangular International Championships in 1983.

In a career lasting nearly twenty years, Kamlesh Mehta has received numerous awards. The first to come was Maharashtra Government's Shiv Chhatrapati Award in 1979 followed by "The Friendship Trophy" for being the best player from India at the Asian Championship in Islamabad in 1984. He was twice named the "Best Sportsman" by the Sports Journalists' Association of Bombay. He was awarded the Arjuna Award in 1985. The first Indian to receive the "Fair Play" Trophy at the Commonwealth Championships in 1989, Kamlesh was appointed the National Coach in 1998.