Mapusa (Goa), Jan 25 – The young Indian duo of Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah sailed into the men’s doubles quarterfinals of the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender Goa 2024 with a comfortable victory over Pang Yew En Koen and Avatar Quek Izaac of Indonesia at the Peddem Indoor Stadium on Thursday.
The Indian pair from Gujarat dominated their Indonesian opponents 11-7, 11-9, 11-5 in front of a cheering crowd in the round-of-16 match.
Meanwhile, paddlers from Maharashtra Taneesha Kotecha and Sayali Wani brought further cheer to the Indian camp by entering the last-eight stage in the women’s doubles event. They saw off a strong challenge from Christina Kallberg and Filippa Bergand of Sweden to notch up an 11-9, 4-11, 11-8, 11-7 victory.
The Indian girls will face Jeon Jihee and Shin Yubin of South Korea in the quarterfinals. The pair from South Korea had gotten 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, India’s 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 gave more reason to cheer to the Indian fans by defeating 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.
It was an exciting contest between two experienced contenders and kept the crowd at the edge of their seats with its plethora of hard-fought rallies and intense action.
In other results on the day, Jeet Chandra of India went down 5-11, 8-11, 4-11 to Alvaro Robles of Spain in the first round of the men’s singles event.
India’s Ajali Rohilla fought an uphill battle against Lee Eunhye of South Korea before losing 5-11, 10-12, 3-11 in the women’s singles game. Nithya Mani of India also lost to Thailand’s Orawan Paranang by a 15-13, 8-11, 2-11, 7-11 margin.
bsk/
