Indian Table Tennis Thread ...

[Sin Hombre]

Ok, did some research on Indian table tennis last night

At Liebherr 2019 ITTF World Championships, Budapest, Hungary

[R1] Archana Girish Kamath (IND,155) l Dina Meshref (EGY,50) 4-3 (11-8, 11-8, 19-17, 8-11, 6-11, 7-11, 4-11)

I am not sure much has been said about this teenager but she appears to be quite the prospect.

Beat Manika to win the national title as an 18-year old and is now #3 amongst u21s and clearly giving top 50 players a tough outing. She went from 3 games up to lose 4-3 so is her game one which is hard to read to begin and is there a surprise factor involved?

Indian men's team beat Singapore easily with a 3-0 scoreline and will now fight against Hong Kong for 5-6th positions. And Indian women beat Malaysia 3-0 to get 9th position. Indian women or rather Manika Batra still finding it hard to find her commonwealth form.

We finished 5th here by beating HK 3-0 as well which is very impressive.

Which would put us at around 6th in the world.

More than mixed, this should be our 2c medal chance at Tokyo next year. If we were to don our PKB hats, it is not impossible to think we could finish ahead of Korea, Germany and Taiwan to finish 3rd behind China and Japan.

[sameerph]

At the ITTF World cup in Chengdu,China which is meant for top 8 table tennis players of the world and others who are continental qualifiers, Sathiyan Ganashekharan beat 2 higher ranked Euoprean players to at group stage. This he topped his group and reached knock out stage and last 16.

[M1] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) d. Simon Gauzy (FRA,22) 11-13, 9-11, 11-8, 14-12, 7-11, 11-5, 11-8

[M2] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) d. Groth Jonathan (DEN,24) 11-3, 12-10, 7-11, 16-14, 8-11, 11-8

Next,

[PQF] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) vs. Timo Ball (GER,8)

Tough match against a fomer world #1.

[sameerph]

Sathiyan lost in the PQF.

[PQF] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) l. Timo Ball (GER,8) 11-7,8-11,5-11,9-11,8-11

Still a creditable effort by him in his first world cup.

[sameerph]

Indian men's team beat Singapore easily with a 3-0 scoreline and will now fight against Hong Kong for 5-6th positions. And Indian women beat Malaysia 3-0 to get 9th position. Indian women or rather Manika Batra still finding it hard to find her commonwealth form.

We finished 5th here by beating HK 3-0 as well which is very impressive.

Which would put us at around 6th in the world.

More than mixed, this should be our 2c medal chance at Tokyo next year. If we were to don our PKB hats, it is not impossible to think we could finish ahead of Korea, Germany and Taiwan to finish 3rd behind China and Japan.

Looks like the Indian team members also think so. We are now ranked 8th in the world rankings -

India's Men's Table Tennis Team Decode How They Secured The Country's Highest-Ever World Ranking

"Last year, we beat World No. 4 France and also Japan. So, anything's possible," said Harmeet. "It took us 60 years to win our first Asian Games medal but it won't take us too long to win an Olympic medal," felt Sharath Kamal.

First task though is to qualify for olympics which will not be an easy task too at olympic qualifiers in January.

[sameerph]

This week our mens and womens team are participating in the team qualification tournament in Gondomar, Portugal.

These are the Indian teams , draws and schedule -

Indian Squad
Men’s: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Manav Vikas Thakkar, Harmeet Desai, Anthony Amalraj

Women’s: Manika Batra, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Ayhika Mukherjee, Madhurika Patkar, Archana Girish Kamath

Schedule

Men’s: India (5) vs Luxembourg (32) — 10.30 pm (IST) Wednesday, 22nd January, 2020

Women’s: India (17) vs Sweden (16) — 12.30 am (IST) Thursday, 23nd January, 2020

Mens team if it wins today, it will play the winner between Iran and Slovenia tomorrow where a win will qualify for them for Tokyo.

Women team if it wins today, it will play the winner between Romania or Italy for qualification.

[sameerph]

Both our teams won their first round matches to move to PQF. Womens team win against higher ranked Sweeden was a surprise where our junior Archana Kamath came thru in the deciding match against higher ranked player after saving 2 match points

This is the detailed report -

Indian men and women one win away from qualifying for olympics

Our 8th ranked Men against 15th ranked Slovenia and our 23rd ranked women against 8th ranked Romania in matches which will determine the qulifiers for Tokyo olympics.

[sameerph]

So, key final qualifying matches for both our women and men are today and has started with the match between our 23rd ranked girls against 8th ranked Romania.

It is all tied 1-1 at the moment.

Our lowly ranked doubles team of Ayhika & Suthirtha Mukherjee lost in a close match in 5 games against 27th ranked Romanian doubles team after leading 2-1 at one stage for us to go 0-1 down.

But, Manika Batra comes up with a big upset against Romanian #1 and world #17 Bernadette Szocs 3-1 to level the tie.

Still going to be a tough tie for us. Manika may win her second match too against Romanian #3 but someone else needs to win another match too.

[sameerph]

Heartbreak for our womens team. After Ayhika lost as expected her singles match, we were down in dumps at 1-2. But, WR 157 Sutirtha Mujherjee had an unbelivable win down WR 19 Szocs to square it 2-2 for us and actually put is in a commanding position. But, in a key match our #1 Manika Batra faltered under pressure and lost to a player ranked outside. So close yet so far. We did all the hard work but just fell apart when it was thought that we are on line to qualify.

We still have a chance as top 9 teams qualify with a playoff between 9-16 places teams but it is a long rope as we need to win 3 matches.

Mens team is on now against Slovenia.

[sameerph]

And mens team loses too. 1-3 against lower ranked Slovenia. That is really bad performance by our men. They too still have a chance but a long road to win 3 matches.

[jaydeep]

Yes, a bad loss for the Indian men's team ... After winning the doubles match, Sathiyan (WR#30) and Sharath (WR#33) lost their singles matches against Darko Jorgic (WR#40) and Harmeet (WR#86) lost against Bojan Tokic (WR#62) after leading 2-1 games ... In Stage 2 quarter-final (draw between the round of 16 losers), they r facing the Czech Republic team.

And our women r facing a French team in Stage 2 quarter-final.

[sameerph]

Both our teams lost at the first stage of the QF itself against Czech Republic and France respectively. At least women put up a fight losing 9-11 in the fifth match but men lost fair and sqaure 1-3.

Overall, although women could have qualified with a win by our # Manika Batra in a key match against Romania, they did fairly okay considering their current ranking.

But, mens team were a big disappointment. With their current world ranking of #8 they were expected to qualify easily. At one point I had considered them to be outside hopes for a medal too at Tokyo. But, they lost to 2 lower ranked teams here. This is first real setback in terms of Tokyo olympics.

[jaydeep]

Yes, a poor performance for our men's team ... Sathiyan's erratic form cost our place in Tokyo Olympic.
Look at his results here,

Against the Czech Republic:
[M2] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) l Pavel Sirucek (CZE,45) 0-3 (10-12, 11-13, 9-11)
[M4] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) l Tomas Polansky (CZE,166) 2-3 (16-14, 10-12, 14-12, 8-11, 9-11)

Against Slovenia:
[M2] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) l Darko Jorgic (SLO,40) 0-3 (9-11, 10-12, 3-11)

Against Luxembourg:
[M2] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) bt Luka Mladenovic (LUX,211) 3-2 (8-11, 9-11, 11-3, 13-11, 11-6)

[sameerph]

Some really good performances by our table tennis players at Hungarian open this week.

Manika Batra qualified thru to main draw with 3 straight games win in qualifying. Manika, then, produced one of the biggest wins of her career as she beat World No. 26 Chen Szu-Yu (TPE) 4-3 in a terrific encounter. The 24-year-old paddler lost the first 3 games, and then faced match point in game 4 for a straight-set loss. However, she managed to save it, and then, started gaining confidence and momentum.Eventually, Manika rallied to a 9-11 4-11 7-11 12-10 11-9 11-7 14-12 win to enter the Round of 16.

Sathiyan Ganashekhran easily won his first round match too against an Iranian player.

Also in mixed doubles and mens doubles, our pairs of Achantha Sharath Kamal/Manika Batra and Achantha Sharath Kamal/Sathiyan Ganshekhran have reached the QF.

[jaydeep]

Expected losses of Manika and Sathiyan in the singles against their respective superior Japanese opponents.

In the doubles, Sathiyan and Sharath reach into the final ... They scored a couple of exciting wins over higher ranked Japanese and Hong Kong pairs ... In the final, they r facing a German pair.

In MXD, Sharat and Manika lost in the semis against the German pair ... Before that, they received a walkover in the quarters from a higher-ranked Japanese pair.

At $170K ITTF World Tour Hungarian Open 2020, Budapest, Hungary

Women's Singles
[R16] Manika Batra (IND,67) l (4) Miu Hirano (JPN,11) 0-4 (9-11, 1-11, 7-11, 7-11)

Men's Singles
[R16] Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND,30) l (1) Tomokazu Harimoto (JPN,5) 0-4 (8-11, 5-11, 4-11, 8-11)

Men's Doubles
[PR2] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND) bt Ibrahim Gunduz (TUR)/ Abdullah Yigenler (TUR) 3-1 (9-11, 11-4, 11-8, 11-4)

[R16] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND) bt Shunsuke Togami (JPN)/ Yukiya Uda (JPN) 3-2 (11-6, 11-8, 8-11, 9-11 11-9)
[QF] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND) bt (4) Nandor Ecseki (HUN)/ Adam Szudi (HUN) 3-0 (11-8, 11-7, 11-8)
[SF] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND) bt (1) Kwan Kit Ho (HKG)/ Chun Ting Wong (HKG) 3-2 (11-7, 12-10, 4-11, 4-11, 11-9)

[F] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND) vs (2) Benedikt Duda (GER)/ Patrick Franziska (GER)

Mixed Doubles
[PR2] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/ Manika Batra (IND) bt Aliaksandr Khanin (BLR)/ Daria Trigolos (BLR) 3-1 (11-4, 9-11, 11-7, 13-11)

[R16] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/ Manika Batra (IND) bt Adam Szudi (HUN)/ Szandra Pergel (HUN) 3-2 (11-8, 9-11, 6-11, 11-9, 11-7)
[QF] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/ Manika Batra (IND) bt Jun Mizutani (JPN)/ Mima Ito (JPN) w/o

[SF] Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/ Manika Batra (IND) l Patrick Franziska (GER)/ Petrissa Solja (GER) 0-3 (6-11, 8-11, 6-11)

[jaydeep]

Sathiyan and Sharath ended with silver, but they became a first Indian pair to reach the final of such big ITTF World Tour tournament ... After losing the first game easily our pair gave a fighting performance and stretched the 2nd seed German pair ... Our pair tried to fight back but the German pair used their experience to complete win in 4 games.

At $170K ITTF World Tour Hungarian Open 2020, Budapest, Hungary

Men's Doubles Final
Sharath Kamal Achanta (IND)/Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (IND) l (2) Benedikt Duda (GER)/ Patrick Franziska (GER) 1-3 (5-11, 9-11, 11-8, 9-11)