Picture Credit: Twitter
The India contingent had a mixed opening day at the ITTF World Team Championships Finals 2022. The Indian men’s team had a stellar start to their campaign as they defeated Uzbekistan 3-0. But the women’s team couldn’t produce a similar result as they suffered a hard-fought 2-3 defeat against the German team in its first Group 5 match.
World No. 37 Sathiyan Gnanasekaran drew first blood for India as he took down Kholikov Elmurod 3-0. After two close 11-9 games, Sathiyan blew past his Uzbek opponent with a stunning 11-1 win. National Games champion Harmeet Desai registered another 3-0 over Anorboev Abdulaziz.
The fixture started off with a close 11-9 win. Then Desai clinched an 11-6 win in the second game which was followed by another closely contested 11-9 victory. In the third match, Manav Thakkar sealed India’s victory after defeating Iskandarov Shokhrukh 3-0.
He started with an 11-6 win and then closed out the tie with consecutive 11-5 wins. After the victory, the Indian men’s table tennis team is second in Group 2 with two points and will next face second-seeded Germany on Sunday.
The Women’s team started off their fixture with defeat as Manika Batra lost the first match 3-0 to world No.8 Han Ying. Batra was looking out of touch as she was blown out in the first game with an 11-3 defeat. The Indian’s struggles continued as she registered an 11-1 loss which was followed by another 11-2 defeat.
National champion Sreeja Akula levelled the fixture for India back with an impressive 11-9, 12-10, 11-7 win over world No. 14 Nina Mittelham. Diya Chitale, built on this momentum as she pulled off another upset and took down world No. 46 Sabine Winter 3-1 (11-9, 11-8, 6-11, 13-11).
But this winning streak ended as Manika Batra once failed to clinch the victory despite going up 1-0 against Nina Mittelham. But lost 11-7, 6-11, 7-11, 8-11 as Germany levelled the tie 2-2. Sreeja Akula could not repeat her winning performance in the deciding match as she lost 3-0 (11-3, 11-5, 11-4) to Han Ying. The women’s team will face the Czech Republic on Sunday.
