Manav Thakkar settle for silver after losing in the final of World Junior Circuit Finals

02/05/2018

Paddler Manav Thakkar had to settle for a silver medal after losing to the top seed Kanak Jha in the final of the International Table Tennis Federation World Junior Circuit Finals at Luxembourg. The former world number 1 failed to cash in on the sixth game of the final, ending up as the second best.

Manav went down to Jha (11-9, 3-11, 11-9. 6-11, 3-11, 11-9, 6-11) in a nail-biting encounter. Initially, Jha had not qualified for the main draw but made it there by topping the initial group stage through game ratios.

"He converted some good points and got benefited from negatives that I shouldn't have offered," said Thakkar as quoted by PTI.

In the semifinals, Thakkar had defeated Egypt's Youssef Abdel-Aziz who had earlier beaten the American (Jha) in straight games of 11-8, 11-8, 11-5, 11-8 in the group stage.

In the other semifinal, the world number one defeated the sixth seed Russian Ivonin Denis 11-3, 12-10, 11-9, 11-6.