Payas Jain triumphs in Tunis WTT Contender, youngsters shine

India’s upcoming table tennis player Payas Jain is in the form of his life. After winning the gold medal in the WTT Youth Contender in Slovenia last week, the Delhi-based table tennis player won his second gold medal on the trot when he beat Tom Closset of Belgium 3-1 (7-11, 11-4, 11-4, 15-13) in the WTT Youth Contender final U-17 category in Tunis.

Payas Jain had a bad start to the final but came back strong to take on the Belgian to go 2-1 up quickly. However, in the fourth touch-and-go game, his opponent squandered a couple of game points to let the Indian table tennis player finish in style.

Earlier in his semi-final, Payas Jain defeated Preyesh Raj Suresh in straight games of 16-14, 11-8, 11-8. Despite his upper hand in the first game, the Tamil Nadu boy could not breach Payas Jain’s confidence and finally settled for the bronze.

Read: WTT Contender: Three Indian table tennis players in qualifiers, top Indians in main draw

Ankur Bhattacharjee, who played an enduring semi-final against Tom Closset, came close to clinching it. But, in the end, the Belgian proved a notch better, leaving the Indian table tennis player with the bronze medal.

Payas Jain fails to replicate success in U-19 category

However, Payas Jain failed to cross the semi-final hurdle, yet again, in the U-19 boys’ category. The Indian ended up on the podium, receiving the bronze medal after going down to Louis Laffineur 1-3 (11-9, 10-12, 4-11, 9-11).

Payas Jain began well and, after a bit of struggle in the second, deuced. The Belgian bounced back well and completed the task soon after taking the second game.

In another semi-final Maharashtra's Deepit Patel went down 3-11, 4-11, 7-11 to Adrien Rassanfosse, also a Belgian. Adrien became the eventual winner when he defeated his compatriot Tom in the final.

The left-handed Preyesh Raj made up for his loss in the higher age group category to take the U-15 boys’ title. He downed Ankur Bhattacharjee in the final 3-1 (11-8, 15-13, 11-13, 11-9). The West Bengal paddler ascended to the podium for the second time, this time winning a silver medal.

Another Indian, P.B. Abhinand of Tamil Nadu, settled for bronze after losing his semi-final 9-11, 12-10, 7-11, 1-11 to Ankur earlier in the day.

In the U-11 boys category, it was an all-Indian show again as Vishruth Ramakrishnan claimed the gold medal after accounting for local boy Amir Essid. The Tamil Nadu boy won 11-4, 11-3, 11-7.