India, Feb. 18 -- Ayhika Mukherjee smiled as she talked about the last time she was in China. She recalled being greeted and followed by her very own fan group, who would approach her autographs and photographs wherever she went, as she competed at the WTT China Smash in Beijing in October.

"In India, I'm not that well recognised," Mukherjee said to HT, on the sidelines of the 86th Senior National Championship in Surat last month. "But in China, people seemed to know exactly who I am. Table tennis is their national sport and they knew what I had done."

What Mukherjee had managed to do was shake the Chinese table tennis fraternity with an unexpected win over world No.1 Sun Yingsha at the World Team Championships last year.

"That was a b...