INTERVIEW-Table tennis-Valiant Knight smiles on life's struggles

LONDON, April 18 (Reuters) - Darius Knight does not give the impression of a young sportsman with a very, very large mountain to climb.

The 21-year-old made waves in his South London community with a silver medal as part of England's Commonwealth Games table tennis team last year in New Delhi.

It was a rare ray of sunlight on a fledgling career in which lack of financial support, the best coaches and even the backing of his closest family threaten to scupper his aspirations in a sport almost entirely dominated by Chinese.

Yet the jaunty, almost cocky Knight plays the part of a young man on the cusp of conquering the world rather than someone struggling to rise up from his lowly ranking of 236 and gain a berth on the team for the 2012 London Olympics.

"Winning as usual," he said after dispatching another wicked forehand past his opponent in a game of "virtual" table tennis at the Kinect Sports Superstars event in a restored London power station last week.

Real life, though, has always been hard for Knight, who discovered that sport could be a way out of the tough London estate he was raised in rather than the route of crime many of his friends took. "Most of them are in jail, some of them are dead. You don't want to get caught in the mix-up," he told Reuters.

Knight's packed training schedule and lack of support have made life even tougher. He said his neighbours are probably his biggest help.

"When I get in they say 'come and get some food'. They've saved me an hour by not having to cook and then clean the kitchen," said the Londoner, who quit the capital for Sheffield in northern England where elite training is more easily accessible.

"I do have some people, who win or lose, always text me to say 'Come on' or 'well done.' My mum doesn't say anything to me.

"These friends, I wouldn't say they're more important than my mum, but they're the ones who let me know they care and that they're there for me.

"Every time another team plays their mums and dads are there. When I play it's just me. That has an effect on you mentally."

Having very little or no family support at competitions is tough for Knight, as is returning to his home in South London.

"My mum's struggling herself, she's got a young child. When I go back home, they've been jealous of me for years because I've been doing something in the family, so I've got to be quiet and normal because I don't want her to get more upset.

"This is the typical South London way of life. People don't strive to be great and do things with their life."

NO FUNDING

UK Sport's decision in 2008 to cut funding to table tennis after a medal-less Beijing Olympics still rankles with Knight, though he is aware how far the sport has come.

"We train so hard and we've achieved so much, so for us to have nothing ... it's not like we're not winning.

"We (compatriot Paul Drinkhall and Knight) were youth Olympic gold medallists in 2006, we won a Commonwealth silver medal in 2010, we're in the top 20/30 for our age. That's good for a sport that 10 years ago had nothing."

Drinkhall is England's top ranked player at 129, and though both are young they are a long way off the standards set by the Chinese who have six men in the top 10.

"In China there are 50-100 Dariuses and Paul Drinkhalls. They're machines. In England there's only two of us," said Knight.

"If you compete against 200 of them every week and you get to number one in China, you're laughing. You're going to feel like god aren't you?"

Knight envies the set-up for the players in the world's most populous country.

"Their budget is unlimited, their coaches know a lot more and they have nothing to worry about. They've got their own private cooks. It's an uneven playing field." England's best talents will travel to the sport's leading nation later this year to hone their games for two to three weeks, but this limited timeframe hinders how much they can achieve, said Knight.

"We go there but it costs a lot of money and we don't have any funding. It's a Catch 22. Just as you leave you start to feel good," he said.

Knight's mood, possibly thinking of comparisons with schooldays friends now behind bars, suddenly brightens.

"I'm still a kid. I've got another 15-20 years to play.

"I just want to be a table tennis player, I don't want to be rich. Of course you want money to be comfortable but when I was 15 I just wanted to play table tennis."

(Editing by Jon Bramley; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)