World Table Tennis Championship Finals | Indian teams lose out in quarters
A file image of Manika Batra and Archana Kamath.
|(Twitter)
India's campaign at the World Table Tennis Championship Finals 2021 in Houston, USA, ended in a disappointment as the women's doubles and mixed doubles teams lost their quarter-final matches, respectively. Had India managed to win the matches, the teams would have been assured of two medals.
In the mixed doubles match, Manika Batra and G Sathiyan lost 1-3 (5-11, 2-11, 11-7, 9-11) to Japan’s Hina Hayata and Tomokazu Harimoto, the world No. 20 team. In the women's doubles, Batra and her partner Archana Kamath lost 0-3 (1-11, 6-11, 8-11) to Sarah de Nuette and Xia Lian Ni of Luxembourg in the final eight.
India has never won a medal at the championship, except for the inaugural edition, and this was a perfect opportunity for them to rewrite the history books. Meanwhile, in the singles section Sathiyan was the most successful Indian as he managed to reach round of 32.Â
“End of a dream run here in Houston which was certainly one of my best ever world championships so far,” Sathiyan Gnaneshkaran said on his Twitter page.
“Though it was disheartening not to make it after coming agonisingly close to a historic medal and also for missing out closely to break into top-16 in singles for the first time, nevertheless was certainly a terrific tournament and lots to learn from,” Sathiyan added.
