The Indian pair of Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah sailed into the men’s doubles quarter-finals of the 2024 WTT Star Contender Goa with a comfortable victory over Pang Yew En Koen and Avatar Quek Izaac of Indonesia in Goa on Thursday.
The Indian pair, both from Gujarat, dominated their Indonesian opponents 11-7, 11-9, 11-5 in front of a buoyant home crowd in the Round-of-16 match.
Meanwhile, Taneesha Kotecha and Sayali Wani saw off a strong challenge from Christina Kallberg and Filippa Bergand of Sweden to notch up a 11-9, 4-11, 11-8, 11-7 victory and enter the last-eight stage of the women’s doubles event.
Kotecha and Wani will face Jeon Jihee and Shin Yubin of South Korea in the quarter-finals. The pair from South Korea had got the better of Barbora Balazova and Tatiana Kukulkova of Slovakia 11-9, 11-6, 11-3 in their opening round clash.
In women’s singles, Archana Kamath entered the Round-of-32 by defeating Maria Xiao of Spain 11-7, 13-11, 12-10 in the opening round.
Sreeja Akula, the reigning national champion, beat Camille Lutz of France 11-5, 9-11, 11-7, 11-8 in another first round women’s singles contest. The Indian star will play Egypt’s Hana Goda in the second round.
In men’s singles, India’s Harmeet Desai crashed out in the first round itself as he went down 11-13, 11-9, 9-11, 11-8, 6-11 to Andrej Gacina of Croatia.
In other results on the day, Jeet Chandra went down 5-11, 8-11, 4-11 to Alvaro Robles of Spain in the first round of the men’s singles event.
Ajali Rohilla fought an uphill battle against Lee Eunhye of South Korea before losing 5-11, 10-12, 3-11 in women’s singles game. Nithya Mani also lost to Thailand’s Orawan Paranang by a 15-13, 8-11, 2-11, 7-11 margin.
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