Language -WTT Contender Novo Mesto | Sreeja Akula, Diya Chitale and Swastika Ghosh in final qualifying round
A file image of Sreeja Akula.
|(Twitter)
Indian paddlers Sreeja Akula, Diya Chitale and Swastika Ghosh made it to the singles final qualifying round at the WTT Contender Novo Mesto 2021 in Slovenia on Tuesday, as per a report in Olympics.com. Sreeja went on to beat Wong Xin Ru of Singapore 3-1 (15-17, 11-8, 11-7, 11-9).
Diya Chitale got the better of Valeria Scherbathykh of Russia 3-0 (11-7, 11-8, 14-12), and lastly, Swastika won against Filippa Bergand of Sweden. She won 3-2 (12-10, 8-11, 11-5, 9-11, 11-9). Unfortunately, Selena Selvakumar, Archana Kamath and Krittwika Roy were ousted in the second qualifying round.
Indian men's players suffered a similar fate as none of them could progress to the next qualifying round. Snehit Suravajjula lost to Singapore’s Chew Zhe Yu Clarence 2-3 and Sushmit Sriram lost to Lubomir Jancarik 3-0. Jeet Chandra was downed by Samuel Walker of England 1-3.
Another Indian in the fray, Asian medallist Manav Thakkar was ousted by compatriot Snehit 3-1. Soumyajit Ghosh lost his match against Steffen Mengel of Germany 0-3, while Anthony Amalraj, a 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, had lost to Australia's Xavier Dixon 2-3.
Only the likes of Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai are in the men's main draw so far. Ace Indian paddler Manika Batra is not a part of this competition and has taken a short break.
