G. Sathiyan and Sharath Kamal qualified for the main draw in the men’s doubles category of the ITTF Hungarian Open after defeating the Turkish team of Ibrahim Gunduz and Abdullah Yigenler in the second preliminary round in Budapest on Wednesday.
The Indian duo recovered from a slow start, after dropping the first game, 9-11, to win the next three games 11-4, 11-8, 11-4 and complete a successful turnaround.
The pair will take on Togami Shunsukei and Yukiya Uda of Japan in the last-16 match.
Joining them in the main draw is the pairing of Manav Thakkar and Harmeet Desai. They battled past Jon Persson and Truls Moregard 11-7, 8-11, 6-11, 11-5, 11-8 in their second prelims round encounter. Thakkar and Manav have been drawn against Hong Kong’s Lam Siu Hang and Ng Pak Nam in the round of 16.
Read: Sathiyan signs for T-League side Okayama Rivets
Earlier on Tuesday, Thakkar and Desai had defeated Hungarian duo of Csaba Andras and Oliver Both 11-8, 11-8, 9-11, 11-4 in the first qualification round.
Sharath Kamal will also pair up with Manika Batra in the mixed doubles category as the duo will take on Adam Szudi and Szanadra Pergel of Hungary in the round of 16.
-Sathiyan in main draw, one final challenge for Harmeet-
Sathiyan, owing to his world ranking of 30, was given a direct entry into the main draw of the World Tour tournament. He will begin his campaign on Thursday.
On the other hand, world No. 90 Desai needs to win the fourth preliminary round encounter to join Sathiyan. The Surat-born paddler beat Thailand’s Padasak Tanviriyavechakul and Chen Chien-an in the previous rounds.
Other contenders in Sharath Kamal, Sanil Shetty and Manav Thakkar crashed out in the qualification round.
-Manika, Sutirtha in contention in singles-
Manika and Sutirtha Mukherjee need to cross one final hurdle in the third preliminary round to advance to the main draw of the women’s singles. World No. 67 Manika breezed past Belgian Margo Delgraf in straight games (4-0) and Italian Jamila Laurenti 9-11, 11-2, 11-7, 11-4, 11-3 in the first two rounds of qualification. She will face Aikaterini Toliou of Greece next.
World No. 160 Sutirtha beat Sweden’s Linda Bergstrom 4-0 and followed it up with a 11-5, 4-11, 7-11, 11-5, 11-9, 11-8 victory over Marie Migot of France to set up a final qualification-round match-up with Dutch Britt Eerland .
Meanwhile, Krittwika Roy and Madhurika Patkar failed to make the cut.
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