Picture Credit: Twitter
The Indian men’s table tennis team comprising of Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran settled for a bronze medal finish earlier on Wednesday, 6 September. The men’s team, which is third seeded lost to the second seeded Chinese Taipei side 0-3 in the semifinals of the 26 th ITTF Asian Championships 2023.
Except from the top-ranked Indian, Harmeet Desai, all matches ended with a one-sided victory. While the World No. 63 Desai went neck-and-neck till the fifth game against World No. 33 Kao Cheng-Jui, the latter came out on top winning four of them. Apart from Desai, 41-year-old Sharath Kamal went down 11-6, 11-6, 11-9 against Chuang Chih-Yuan, G. Sathiyan failed against Lin Yun-Ju 5-11, 6-11, 10-12.
Earlier, the men’s team had beaten Singapore to make the last four and assured India a medal. They went past their Singapore opponents 3-0 to seal a semifinals spot as veteran Sharath Kamal beat Izaac Quek 3-2, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran followed the lead with a 3-0 win over Pang Yew En Koen. Later Harmeet Desai wrapped up the win with a 3-0 win over Clarence Chew Zhe Yu.
Talking about the Indian women’s team, they crashed out of the Pyeongchang meet after losing to Japan in the quarterfinals. The women’s side comprising of Manika Batra, Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee were knocked out following a 3-0 loss.
