WTT Contender Novo Mesto | Sreeja Akula, Diya Chitale and Swastika Ghosh in final qualifying round
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.Â
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.