WTT Contender: Archana Kamath, Sreeja Akula in main draw, men paddlers disappoint

Indian table tennis players Archana Kamath and Sreeja Akula qualified to enter the women’s singles main draw of the WTT Contender being held in Muscat. They will join Manika Batra, who got a direct entry into the round-of-32.

However, in the men’s singles none of the five players made it to the main draw, leaving Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, another direct entrant into the second stage, to fight for India’s honors.

Sathiyan will meet 16-year-old Chinese Lin Shidong in the round-of-32.

In the third round of the qualifiers, Archana Kamath defeated Oze Yilmaz 11-8, 5-11, 12-10, 11-7. The 145th ranked player from Turkey managed to take the second game off Archana and came close in the third game at 10-10 but the 99th ranked Indian saw through the crucial phase to stamp her authority.

In the main draw, Archana Kamath will take on higher-ranked (No. 42) Mo Zhang of China in the round-of-32.

Sreeja Akula, in her third-round triumph (11-5, 11-13, 12-10, 11-4) over Yang Huijing had to endure good resistance from the Chinese. The Indian paddler, ranked 111, won the third game 12-10 before closing out on her rival.

Sreeja will meet Jia Nan Yuan, a player of Chinese origin, representing France in her next round.

Young Diya Chitale put up a good fight against Shi Xunyao, also from China, before losing 7-11, 4-11, 11-9, 18-16, 11-8.

The Mumbai girl, precariously down 0-2, picked up well but eventually lost in the decider.

Reeth Rishya and Sutirtha Mukherjee went down in the second round even as veteran Madhurika Patka failed in the first.

In the men's singles, Manav Thakkar was ousted in the fourth round of qualification while Harmeet Desai, Sanil Shetty and Manush Shah exited in the third round. Anthony Amalraj bowed out in the second round.

Archana Kamath goes down in doubles

India received a double jolt when the second-seeded pair of Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai went down to Taipei's Peng Wang-Wei and Chuang Chih-Yuan 2-3 (11-7, 10-12, 4-11, 13-11, 9-11). It was followed by the exit of Manika Batra and Archana Kamath, also seeded second.

Manika and Archana Kamath lost to the Hungarian pair of Leila Imre and Mercedes Nagyvaradi 7-11, 9-11, 6-11.

Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee combined well to upset the top-seeded Diaz siblings, Adriana and Melanie of Puerto Rico, 11-6, 11-5, 11-9. They will meet Zdena Blaskova and Katerina Tomanovska of the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals.

Sreeja Akula and Selena Deepti Selvakumar paired up to beat the Singaporean duo of Lin Ye and Zeng Jian 11-8, 5-11, 13-11, 5-11, 11-4 in round-of-16. They await a quarter-final showdown against Goi Rui Xuan and Wong Xin Ru, also from Singapore.