Sean Doherty is not one to let an opportunity pass him by. And what an opportunity.

The Scottish junior number one has won a year's contract to play with leading French club Levallois next season and will be able to devote himself totally to table tennis.

It is a remarkable achievement by a club who can pick and choose the best French youngsters but have seen the potential in a 17 year-old from Scotland.

While the initial contact with the club came from "a friend of a friend", Doherty, from Glasgow, travelled to the club which is based near Paris for trials in January and then April.

The club clearly liked what they saw and, while Doherty's family will need to fund the cost of accommodation for the year, everything else will be looked after.

It will give Doherty the opportunity to take his game to a new level and build the foundations for the 2014 Commonwealth Games which will be held virtually on his doorstep, at Scotstoun.

Doherty is the first Scot to be taken on by a professional club since current senior number one Gavin Rumgay, who played for a year in Sweden - an experience that saw him rise up the world rankings.

"It is a fantastic chance for me," says Doherty, who plays for the Knightswood club, "To put it in perspective, Scotland has 2,000 registered players but France has 5,000 clubs. It is not as if Levallois take on a lot of foreign players and I'd say 99.9 per cent of the players were French.

"I studied French at school up until a couple of years ago so I guess I'll have to brush up on it before I go over. But I found when I was last over at the club in April that I understood quite a lot."

The Knightswood club has undergone a resurgence in the past few years under the guiding hand of Sean's father Neil and there are now almost 50 registered players.

But it does not compare with what the young Glaswegian will be heading out to later this year: "The Knightswood club is based in a community centre and it's a case of hiring two rooms. One room can accommodate two tables and other three, maybe four at a push.

"The club in France has a massive hall with over 20 fixed tables and Gerflor flooring. There are 500 players at the club and it has eight teams from the top professionals who play in the Pro "A" League in France right down to teams at cadet level.

"It is a different world and, when I was over in April, the players had access to a physio who put them through exercises after training."

Doherty, who is part of the Scotland team for this month's European Youth Championships in Istanbul, has already travelled extensively since taking up the sport six yeras ago and has been to China and Sweden as part of Scotland training groups.

Having just left Hillhead High School, he is now pretty much a full-time player as he trains six days a week for four hours a day to prepare himself for travelling to Turkey.

"In France, I will be training five days a week and then expect to be travelling to tournaments most weekends," Doherty continues, "When I'm at the club I'll be living in a hostel with other athletes and musicians and it's like a mini village.

"But the club will pay for all the travelling and accommodation expenses when I travel to events.
"I'd expect to start off in the third team. The Pro "A" team have just signed a player ranked at number 16 in the world so that shows just what level they are at as they are fully professional.

"There is also a Pro "B" team and these are the top two divisions in France and I'd expect to be playing below that in the first or second division.

"I've initially signed for a year and we'll see what happens after that. I'll be playing double the amount of table tennis I'm playing just now and I'm really looking forward to it.

"I couldn't let this chance pass me by or I'd have regretted it for the rest of my life. This is my gap year, if you like, and I'll know at the end of it if full-time table tennis is for me.

"The Commonwealth Games are four years away and that is my main target and, if all goes well, it gives me something to aim at."

RM
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