new delhi the tokyo olympics is only a year away but indian table tennis new foreign coach dejan papic is yet to join the national team affecting the paddlers preparation for the showpiecein march the table tennis federation of india ttfi had roped in papic as chief coach in place of the longserving massimo costantini who quit last year citing personal reasonsunder costantini india had made rapid strides with historic performances at the gold coast commonwealth games and jakarta asian games where the country ended a 60yearwait for a table tennis medalbut now the players are left to fend for themselvesmassimo costantini had to go for some family issues and after that a coach was finalised but we dont know when he will be joining without a coach it is difficult to prepare for the olympics said indias premier paddler a sharath kamal during an interaction herepapic had interacted with the senior indian players during the world individual championships in budapesthe was expected to join the team this month with the ongoing commonwealth table tennis championships in cuttack supposed to be his first assignment at homeyou see the results it is just me g sathiyan and manika batra is doing well we are training on our own and taking care of our singles training but for doubles we need specialised coaching sharath saidthe coach came for the world championship now in the next 11 months he has to figure out everything by the time he does it will be december our preparation for singles is going on but mixed doubles is an issueaccording to a ttfi official the federation is awaiting a response from papicthe sports authority of india has cleared his appointment and we have sent papic his letter 45 days back we are waiting for him to sign it and send us back the official saidfour indians had qualified for the rio olympics and sharath is confident that the team will make the cut for the tokyo gameswe have a good chance of qualifying as a team for the olympics we are seeded between 9 to 11 and 16 teams qualify we are still favourite to qualify he saidthere is one tournament in january in portugal through which we can qualify and for singles we have an asian qualification in april if it doesnt happen then the world ranking will come into the picture but we should qualifytalking about his qualification chances sharath said i want to qualify during the qualification tournament but if it doesnt happen i will have to play every tournament till june 2020 and from january to june there are 10 pro tours apart from world qualification team asian qualification world championship asia cup in six months i have to stitch myself up for every tournamentso i am just looking to produce my best performance in 8 tournaments instead of playing too many eventsthe hectic international calendar is making life difficult for players and sharath said the qualification process for the olympics need to