India’s men and women registered thumping wins in the preliminary stage to top their respective groups and qualify for the Super Eights in style on the opening day of the 21st Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship.
So dominant were the Indian teams that in 12 matches that the men and women featured combined over four rubbers, the home team paddlers dropped just two games. Despite featuring in a tricky group along with Scotland and dangerous Singapore, A. Sharath Kamal’s troupe made short work of both the teams without much fuss. Only Sharath lost the opening game against Singapore’s Zheyu Clarence Chew but made a strong comeback to leave his opponent in awe.
Read: New coach Dejan Papic to begin stint with team from July
The women, on the other hand, had an easy draw in the first stage. Despite resting Madhurika Patkar in both the ties and key paddler Manika Batra in the second tie, the women hardly broke any sweat while thrashing Sri Lanka and South Africa with an identical margin of 3-0. Ayhika Mukherjee lost the only game for Indian women on the day against Sri Lanka’s Chamathsara Fernando.
Meanwhile, TTFI secretary general M.P. Singh confirmed that five paddlers from Uganda and three from Guyana will arrive in the ancient city latest by Friday and participate in the individual events. Both the teams had to withdraw from the team championship since they didn’t get the requisite approval from their respective governments. It will result in the number of participating countries in the event increasing to 14. “More the merrier,” he said.
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