Indian Table Tennis Asian Games 2023 results Day 5: Manika Batra and Sharath Kamal shine amidst an otherwise disappointing showing

India had a rather disappointing showing in table tennis at the Hangzhou Asian Games on 28 September, Thursday. Although Manika Batra and Sharath Kamal managed to outstage their opponents and take home all the points on offer in their respective singles encounters, not a lot went India's way.

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Batra lost their mixed doubles round of 16 encounter with China's Zhe Yu Chew and Jiang Zeng 3-2. So did Harmeet Desai and Sreeja Akula against Phakpoom and Orawan of Thailand. This, however, was a straight 0-3 rout.

Meanwhile, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee beat Zauresh Akasheva and Anastassiya Lavrova of Kazakhstan 3-0 in their women's doubles round of 32 event. This was one of the other bright spots for India on an otherwise gloomy day in table tennis.

This pair of Sutirtha and Ayhika proved to be too tough to handle for the Kazakh duo, who capitulated in straight sets, 11-7, 11-4, and 11-0.

Sreeja Akula had a challenging time in the singles event too

Sreeja Akula, apart from losing in the mixed doubles round of 32 event, also lost in her singles encounter against Songgyong Pyong of South Korea. The disappointing thing for the player from Hyderabad was that she went down in straight sets despite having run her opponent close in the third.

The match eventually went against her 11-6, 11-4, 13-15, and 11-9. In their men's round of 32 doubles event, Manush Shah and Manav Thakkar rallied to beat Moosa Ahmed and Mohammad Ismail of Maldives by 11-8, 9-11, 11-6, and 11-2. This was another result that went India's way.

Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran beat Ser-Od Ganhuyag and Manlaijargal Munkh of Mongolia in straight sets in their men's doubles round of 32 event. They managed to claim victory over the Mongolian duo by 11-5, 11-3, and 11-3.

In the end, it turned out to be quite a comfortable victory for the experienced Indian pair. Sathiyan also won his single's round of 32 event against Turki Almatuiri of Saudi Arabia by straight sets.

Sreeja, despite having tasted failure earlier in the day, came back strongly in the second session. She beat Ngoc Tran Mai and Nga Nguyen of Vietnam in the women's round of 32 doubles event along with her partner Diya Chitale.