India’s top doubles parings won at the World Table Tennis Championships on Monday with the likes of Achanta Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnansekaran, Manika Batra and Archana Kamath advancing to the next round in their respective doubles events.
The men’s doubles pairing of Sharath and Sathiyan beat the Danish-Hungarian pairing of Anders Lind and Bence Majoros 11-5, 11-4, 15-13 to move into the round of 16.
Sathiyan also progressed to the mixed doubles Round of 16 with Manika Batra after the Indian pair beat Brazil’s Eric Jouti and Luca Kumahara 8-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-6
In the women’s doubles event, the world no 13 pairing of Batra and Archana Kamath secured their place in the last-16 with a 11-5, 11-7, 11-7 win over Hungary’s world No 28 Dora Madarasz and Georgina Pota.
In the singles events, Sharath, Sreeja Akul and Reeth Tennison exited at the round of 64 stage with straight-games defeats. While Sharath lost to world No 33 Lee Sang Su in the men’s singles, Akula and Tennison lost to Germany’s world No 9 Ying Han and world No 14 Nina Mittelham respectively.
Up against the USA’s Nikhil Kumar and Amy Wang, world No 24 Manav Thakkar and Kamath lost 11-6, 9-11, 5-11, 11-5, 9-11. In the women’s doubles, the world No 91 pairing of Akula and Diya Chitale lost to China’s top-ranked pairing of Sun Yingsha/Wang Manyu 8-11, 8-11, 11-13. Harmeet Desai and Manush Shah also bowed out of the men’s doubles after losing to Japan’s world No 2 team of Shunsuke Togami and Yukiya Uda.
Indian TT squad for the World Championships
Men’s singles: G Sathiyan, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, Manush Shah
Women’s singles: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Reeth Rishya
Men’s doubles: Achanta Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan; Manush Shah and Harmeet Desai
Women’s doubles: Manika Batra and Archana Kamath; Sreeja Akula and Diya Chitale
Mixed doubles: G Sathiyan and Manika Batra; Manav Thakkar and Archana Kamath
The World Championships are being held in Durban, South Africa from May 20. Here are the details of the event.
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