Sharath, Ghosh go down in round of 32 at Asian TT

Sharath Kamal, Soumyajit Ghosh and G. Sathiyan exited after reaching the round of 32 in men’s singles, while Harmeet Desai and Sanil Shetty could not last out beyond the round of 64.

Sharath Kamal lost to Hong Kong’s Won Chun Ting.

India’s table tennis engagement in singles and doubles events at the ongoing Asian Championships came to an end as the men and women paddlers bowed out after putting up some exciting performances.

Additionally, the Indians would have also gained individually with good ranking points during the course of their participation.

Sharath Kamal, Soumyajit Ghosh and G. Sathiyan exited after reaching the round of 32 in men’s singles, while Harmeet Desai and Sanil Shetty could not last out beyond the round of 64.

Ghosh was the first to be sent packing when Chinese Fang Bo beat him in straight games of 11-9, 11-5, 11-5, 11-6. Sharath followed him in round 32 when he lost to Hong Kong’s Won Chun Ting 8-11, 11-5, 7-11, 5-11, 4-11 and thereafter Sathiyan as Japanese Yuya Oshima won 11-7, 11-8, 11-6, 11-13, 11-6.

In the earlier round, Ghosh beat Thailand’s Chanakam Udomsilp 4-0, Sharath downed Qatar’s Fahed Almughanne 13-11, 7-11, 11-8, 11-5, 8-11, 11-4 with a bit of struggle and Sathiyan defeated Ashraf Muhamad Haiqal 4-1 (11-6,13-11,11-3,7-11,11-3) in his second encounter against the Malaysian.

However, Sanil Shetty went down 1-11, 10-12, 9-11, 9-11 to Hong Kong’s Ho Kwan Kit and South Korean Kim Minhyeok accounted for Harmeet Desai 6-11, 11-8, 8-11, 12-10, 11-6, 11-2 in a tough duel in the round of 64.

There was a glimmer of hopes for the Indian men’s doubles pair of Ghosh and Desai when they received a walkover from Ma Long and Zhang Jike in the pre-quarterfinals after the top Chinese pair pulled out. But in the quarter-finals, the Indian duo found it tough against the Japanese pair of Masataka Morizono and Yuya Oshima as the latter won 3-1 (11-3, 11-5, 10-12, 12-10) to stop Indian progress.

The other Indian pair of Sathiyan and Shetty failed to cross the pre-quarterfinal hurdle as they could not sustain the 3-0 (11-8, 14-12, 11-3) onslaught by Japan’s Koki Niwa and Maharu Yoshimura, another top pair. Earlier, the Indian beat Turkmenistan’s Rashid Ahmedov and Denis Kuzmenko 11-0, 11-0, 11-0 and followed it up with a win over another Saudi pair of Abdulaziz Al-Abbad and Naif Al-Jadai 13-11, 11-6, 11-7 to enter the pre-quarters.