TEN FOR 2010: Table Tennis hopeful Paul Drinkhall

By Chris Cottrell, Sportsbeat

2009 has been a hard year for the Olympic eight – the octet of sports who had their 2012 budget’s slashed by more than 50 per cent in UK Sport’s no-compromise funding allocation in January.

CLOCK IS TICKING: British No.1 Paul Drinkhall knows he is against the clock in his bid to realise his London 2012 dream (Getty Images)

 

But while the performance directors of British Handball, Water Polo, Volleyball, Weightlifting, Fencing, Wrestling and Shooting will no doubt enjoy a small glass of bubbly over the festive period, British Table Tennis – the only sport not receive an funding increase – must be wondering what they did wrong.

Fearing the worst at the beginning of the year, the British Table Tennis Federation requested all of their £1.207m funding in one sum, with the aim of impressing sufficiently in 2009 to leave UK Sport with no choice but to up their contribution.

In May, British number one Paul Drinkhall estimated the funding would run out at the end of 2010 meaning the next 12 months will make or break British Table Tennis’ aspirations, not just for the London Olympics but for its long-term future.

On paper, Drinkhall is the perfect candidate to compete at 2012. A world junior silver medallist in 2008, the 19-year old made the difficult transition to the senior tour in 2009.

At his first senior World Championships in April, Drinkhall was cruising in the first round against Croatian world number 21 Zoran Primorac. But having taken a 3-0 lead with an 11-1 win in the third game, the teenager couldn’t quite see the match off and went down 13-11 in the decider.

But little more than a month later, he scored one of the best results of his career by winning the under 21 event at the Harmony China Open – one of 17 Pro Tour events over the year.

With the Pro-Tour Grand Finals under-21 tournament to look forward to in early January and currently competing for German Bundesliga side SV Plüderhausen under the tutelage of former world champion Jorgen Persson, 2010 looks to be a big season for Drinkhall.

But will it be big enough to earn British Table Tennis a funding spike?

Another Pro Tour victory wouldn’t go a miss, nor would the progression of one of Drinkhall’s British peers – such as English number two Darius Knight – to the top international level.

But what better place to prove a point to UK Sport than in New Delhi at the Commonwealth Games, where the eyes of the British sporting hierarchy will be firmly fixed in October.

Fingers crossed the coffers have not run dry by then.