Indian Table Tennis Thread ...

[sameerph]

Our girls are choking against Spain. Down 0-2 with both Sreeja and Akula losing their matches against lower ranked players.

Now even qualifying for knockouts is tough, leave alone qualifying for olympics.

[sameerph]

Ayhika and Manika win their matches and it is level at 2-2.

Now,it comes to decider with Sreeja.

[Sin Hombre]

Sreeja did win but this was a terrible performance from the team and doesn't bode well for R32. Sreeja has now lost 3 in a row to top-100ish level players after beating the world #2 in straights.

[pancakesdonuts]

India Women's team will face Italy in Round of 32 and Chinese Taipei in Round of 16. Seems tough against Chinese Taipei. But good news is if we upset Chinese Taipei we will probably face Hong Kong which are beatable and we can create history. Good luck to our team!!!

[gunsnroses]

Italy has just one player in the top 100 - Giorgia Piccolin (WR#88)
Others are ranked 108, 110, 170 and 295

Should be a winnable match.

[sameerph]

I thought Hungary and Spain also we would win easily after that first day against China. But, we just about got thru against both team. Hope no such trouble against Italy. If reach round of 16, there is some chance that we will qualify for Paris based on rankings even if lose in round of 16. That depend on how other teams around us perform.

[gunsnroses]

Yeah quite unpredictable it is

On the men's side we face Kazakhstan tomorrow. Their top player is Kirill Gerassimenko (WR#40) and has won all his matches. Others are ranked outside 200. So on paper, that is winnable too with a score of 3-2.

[PKBasu]

Good job by the Indian men and women to make the play-offs (i.e., the last 24).
The format is: each of the 8 pool toppers make it straight to the last-16. The second and third from each pool (16 teams in total) play the play-offs to determine who will play the pool toppers who are already in the last-16.
Our women finished second in their pool (behind China), while the men finished third in their pool.

[sameerph]

Qualification for Paris olympics will be clear tomorrow as both round of 32 and round of 16 are going to be played tomorrow ( Thursday). So, the teams which win 2 matches tomorrow are going to directly qualify for Paris.

But, even for qualification thru rankings this is the last tournament which counts, so that will be also clear by day end tomorrow.

We absolutely need to win tomorrow's first matches against Kazakhstan (men) and Italy ( women) and than there several scenarios which need to play out.

For example, I read for our men if beat Kazakhstan but lose to Korea in round of 16, we need 1 or 2 of these to happen-

AUT to beat HKG
BRA to beat CRO
HUN to beat DEN

[Sin Hombre]

Without Sreeja playing to her level, a lot of this is moot. It is also unfortunate that we drew #1 China and #4 Taiwan here. I would have liked to see india with Sreeja in form against a Romania or France.

[gunsnroses]

Good start for the Indian women

Sreeja Akula won 3-0 against Nikoleta Stefanova

[gunsnroses]

Manika Batra cruising 3-0 against Giorgia Piccolin

[sameerph]

Without Sreeja playing to her level, a lot of this is moot. It is also unfortunate that we drew #1 China and #4 Taiwan here. I would have liked to see india with Sreeja in form against a Romania or France.

From what I hear making it to round of 16 could be enough for us to qualify for Paris if all 8 seeds win their matches as couple above us are surely losing in those round due to match-ups.

[gunsnroses]

We are through to R16. Ayhika winning the match for us with a 3-1 thrashing of Gaia Monfardini

[sameerph]

Ahyika wins 3-1 and we win 3-0 against Italy.

Now later today we play Taipei and need to keep an eye on our match as well as other matches.