Gerassimenko fails to lead from the front for Chennai Lions

Chennai Lions' captain Kirill Gerassimenko struggles in UTT 2024, leading team to last place finish.

A captain is supposed to lead his troops from the front. Seldom do we see a captain’s performance and that of his team being inversely proportional. It was no different when it came to the Chennai Lions’ miserable campaign in the sixth season of Ultimate Table Tennis.

After finishing the 2023 edition as runner-up and missing out on the semifinal berth in 2024 by a whisker, the Lions banked on Kirill Gerassimenko, the seasoned Kazakhkstan paddler, to steer the ship along with China’s Fan Siqi.

However, every time he took to the table in the last 10 days, seldom did Gerassimenko appear to be the consistent paddler who is considered one of the most dangerous players on the world tour. While Gerassimenko won just four of his 15 games, the Lions finished at the bottom of the points table, failing to win a single match.

Perhaps the air-conditioning worked against him or it was the inability to convert all three golden points against Jaipur Patriots’ Kanak Jha in the Lions’ second match, but Gerassimenko looked ordinary, to say the least, on the table.

The Lions pitted him at the start of the match and later on in the fourth singles, but the result didn’t change. “I tried to change my racket, rubbers, practised in different ways, but nothing worked,” a distraught Gerassimenko admitted after the Lions’ sorry 3-12 loss against Goa Challengers in its last match.

Even coach Jorg Bitzigeio stated they tried their best for a turnaround in Gerassimenko’s form. “In the past two weeks, we tried a lot. We had a lot of conversations and video analysis. In practice, we tried different things just to get him in his routine,” said Bitzigeio.

“He really underperformed. I am not blaming him. It can happen. Sometimes, he felt that he had never played table tennis before. Not result-wise but performance wise, he has never played as bad as he did here. Maybe the match against Kanak where he lost three golden points, could have been a crucial moment for him and the team.”