By Dhammika Ratnaweera
Sri Lanka Table Tennis Paralympian Dinesh Deshapriya won a bronze medal at the Asia Para TT Championship held in Taichung, Chinese Taipei. 35-year-old Deshapriya is the only Sri Lankan to participate in this Para Table Tennis Championship after overcoming many difficulties to make it. “I never give up the game and want to continue for a long way to go ahead” said Deshapriya, who started his career as a normal TT player but a consequent injury to his leg has turned him to be a Para TT player.
In the semi-finals of the Para TT championships, Deshapriya lost 3-2 to world number 4 seed, Koyo Lwabuchi of Japan. However, the game was evenly contested as it dragged to five sets with none of them wanting to give up easily. In the earlier matches, Deshapriya won 3-0 against Indonesia, lost 0-3 to Japan, won 3-0 against Korea and in the quarterfinals beat China 3-0.
Deshapriya had participated in the championship in the Class 9 category which means two knee injuries and playing arm injury. Earlier he used to play class 10 that is an only knee injury. From the birth I have Haemophilia and now it is an effort to my bones and turned out to be osteoporosis with huge pain when I involve with playing. Actually, in this category, Belarus and Belgium two players are top this time while Deshapriya contested with world number 4 player from Japan.
“I won the gold medal earlier at the Thailand open Para TT Championships and obtained 15th rank in this category. That was last December. However, I could not get more chance to play more ranking tournament with financial difficulties. At the moment I managed to obtain 17th rank. If I will enter first 16 rankings I have good opportunity to take part world para TT Championships and that is my one target in next year”said Deshapriya.
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