Shazé Challengers boasted many talented foreign players in the inaugural edition of CEAT UTT and one of them was their skipper, Andrej Gacina. The Croatian has consistently been one of the top paddlers in the world and we caught up with him during his time in India. The 31-year-old spoke about a host of topics ranging from what made him choose table tennis, to a place he would love to visit.

Gacina revealed that he excelled at football at an early age but had to give up the sport due to his immense love for table tennis: “As every young kid in my surrounding, started with football, so did I. But after just 6 months, the civil war started between Croatia and Serbia. As it wasn’t secure to stay in the open space with the war going on, my parents decided to enrol me in table tennis, because it was close to my home and we got to play table tennis in the hall, and not in open spaces like football.”

He continued by saying, “When the war was over, the football coach asked me to come back to football as apparently, I was a football talent. But at that point I already fell in love with table tennis and didn't want to hear about any other sport. Since then, my whole life has been about table tennis. At the age of 12, my whole family moved from Zadar to the capital city, Zagreb, so I could practice better. That is why and how I started with table tennis.”

Like any other player, Gacina says that he enjoys the game’s swiftness and advised youngsters to give their best in the training session to get the desired results: “I enjoy competing – the tension, the speed of the game, especially when I play a nice point to hear the spectators enjoying while I enjoy the game too.”

“Give your best at every training session and be patient, the results will come sooner or later,” Gacina concluded.

Here are the other excerpts from the interview:

What is your favourite movie/TV show?

Shawshank Redemption

What is your favourite food?

Grilled fish

Who is your favourite artist?

Calvin Harris

One place you would love to travel to?

Mauritius