Bengaluru: Shuffle your feet, shuffle your feet – Chris Pfeiffer often has to remind Sharath Kamal. Decades in elite sport can mean switching to auto-pilot and letting your practised skill take the wheel. The 42-year-old Indian will be playing his fifth Olympics in Paris.

“There’s a lot of control in my wrists and hands. It sort of takes over and basically, I start to become slightly laid back and begin to take things for granted.” says Sharath, “And skill alone is never enough.” That’s when the reminders from German coach Chris come in handy. “I need somebody to keep pushing me, getting me out of my comfort zone. Chris is that guy. To keep moving and to stay active is the German way.”

Until he moved back to India in 2016, Sharath lived in Germany and played in the Bundesliga for several years. It’s where he ran into Chris the first time, who was then coach to the under-21 German national team. Their centre in Dusseldorf was also where Sharath’s club was housed and they often saw each other at practice sessions.

Chris took up Manika Batra’s offer to be her coach and arrived in India in 2022. The relationship ended up being short-lived and by November that year he was on a plane back to Germany.

A few weeks later, Sharath called. “Help me qualify for the Olympics?”, he suggested.

The German returned to India in a few months and has been living in Chennai for a year and a half now.

Sometime last year Chris and Sharath sat down to plan for Paris. “At your age, it’s hard to cover the whole table with just your forehand,” Chris told Sharath, “So we have to work on your backhand, make that our goal for the Olympics, even if you’re not so comfortable with it.” Sharath agreed.

“Germans are pretty straightforward,” says Chris, “Sharath knows it well enough. People were a little hard on him when he was in Germany. Later he realised it was a good thing for him. It pushed him to a better level. Also, for me, it’s not like working with a 20-year-old athlete. Sharath understands his body extremely well and he wants to be the best version he can be, so I can be brutally honest with him. Just the amount of work he’s put in over the past year has been incredible.”

“Even as a young coach I was always very impressed by how rooted Sharath is even though he achieved so much for India. He’s still the same guy,”

Chris reckons not too many of his countrymates would be able to shift continents, time zones and live for months together in India like he has. “My feeling is that Tamil Nadu is one of the more traditional states in India. It was also one reason why I took up this adventure. I wanted to learn a little bit about other cultures. I like living in India, it’s been quite good so far,” he says, “Language can be a barrier at times… Tamil is super hard.”

In addition to Chris, Sharath has in-house help too. “What needs to be done I usually know, but for how best it can be done I seek out Rajath,” says Sharath, of his younger brother, “I lean on him for tweaks and improvisations. It’s his primary strength. Since I’ve been playing the game for a long time, certain old habits linger. But the game has changed. So, he sits down with videos of my play, breaks down those old habits and says ‘okay we can’t be doing that any longer’. He understands biomechanics well so he’s able to tell me how to position my shoulder and legs, all of that.”

Rajath quit playing the sport early after a shoulder dislocation. He completed an MBA degree, took up a corporate job and soon realised his heart wasn’t in it. He joined the national federation as performance analyst in 2009 and later slowly took over the job of overseeing Sharath’s training from his father and uncle, who were formerly coaches. Sharath spent the entire pandemic, cooped up at home, sparring with Rajath.

“I would visit Sharath when he was playing in Europe and would travel with him for tournaments. Even though I am the younger one, when he’s playing, and I sit behind him, he kind of listens to me,” laughs Rajath. “Growing up he was a bit strict with me, taking care of me like a proper elder brother but once we got professionally associated, I suppose there are less emotions involved.”

The sibling dynamics though can come in the way at times. “Obviously Rajath has a lot of respect for me as a player. Just the way we’ve grown up together, it may be hard for him sometimes to be brutally honest with if he doesn’t like something. ‘I want you to tell me what you really think’, I sometimes tell him,” Sharath says, “What’s best about him is he’s really calm, so it also helps me stay calm when he’s around. I’m pretty certain that had he not stopped playing when he did, he would have gone on to become a much more successful player than I am.”

It’s largely in training that Rajath pitches in. Sharath gives him a structure of his calendar – the tournaments he wants to play, when he wants to peak and they then sit down with his fitness coach and chalk out a plan. “When it comes to matches, Sharath is among the most experienced players on the circuit,” says Rajath, “He doesn’t really need technical inputs when he’s playing. He just wants the energy, the eye contact after a great point, that’s all.”

Both Chris and Rajath will be by Sharath’s side in Paris. It’s also going to be Sharath’s final Games. Rajath reckons he wouldn’t have missed it for the world. “For an athlete of his age to push himself toward a fresh goal is just so inspiring to watch. I suppose all of us learn from Sharath in many ways,” says Chris, “I can’t say there are too many like him.”

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