Chennai, May 12: Arjuna award-winning former India table tennis player V Chandrasekhar died at a private hospital here on Wednesday due to COVID-19 related complications, family sources said. He was 64 and is survived by his wife and a son.

Chandra, as he was popularly known, was a three-time national champion.

The Chennai-born player, who had reached the semifinals of the Commonwealth Games in 1982, was also a successful coach. His playing career was cut short in 1984 following a botched knee surgery at a hospital here which led to him losing mobility, speech and vision. He fought back to recover and served the game as a coach.

He also fought a legal battle against the hospital and got a verdict in his favour.

Current Indian paddler G Sathiyan was among his trainees. The table tennis fraternity in Chennai condoled his death, saying that the sport had lost a legend.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)