WTT Contender Muscat 2022 | Manika Batra advances to round of 16, mixed doubles teams progress too
A file picture of Manika Batra.
|(Twitter)
With a win against Singapore's Lin Ye in Oman on Wednesday, India's Manika Batra advanced to the round of 16 of the WTT Contender Muscat 2022. In the round of 32, Batra defeated Ye 3-0 (12-10, 11-8, 11-8) and will now face Bernadette Szocs of Romania, a former European Championships silver medalist.
Batra's compatriot Sreeja Akula, on the other hand, was defeated 2-3 by French Olympian Jia Nan Yuan (11-8, 7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 11-8).
Batra and her partner Sathiyan Gnanasekaran advanced to the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles after obtaining a walkover in their round-of-16 match against Kirill Skachkov and Olga Vorobeva. Next up for the Indian duo will be Nandor Ecseki and Leila Imre of Hungary.
With a 3-2 (11-9, 14-12, 11-2) win over Turkey's Ibrahim Gunduz and Sibel Altinkaya, Archana Kamath and Manav Thakkar advanced to the final eight of mixed doubles as well. In the meantime, G Sathiyan and Manika Batra's men's and women's doubles campaigns also cut short.
Peng Wang-Wei and Chuang Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei defeated G Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai 2-3 (7-11, 12-10, 11-4, 11-13, 11-9) in the round of 16 of men's doubles.
In the quarterfinals on Thursday, Peng-Chuang will meet another Indian pair, Manush Shah and Manav Thakkar. Shah-Thakkar advanced after defeating Eric Jouti and Vitor Ishiy of Brazil 3-2 (11-7, 3-11, 11-6, 7-11, 12-14).
Batra and Kamath also exited the round of 16 in the women's doubles after losing 0-3 against Hungary's Leila Imre and Mercedes Nagyvaradi (11-7, 11-9, 11-6).
