The star pairing of Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran who have recently jumped to WR7 in the mixed doubles rankings have celebrated the moment with a superb performance at WTT Contender event being held in Doha
Playing against the WR4 pairing of Doo and Wong from Hong Kong the indian pair kept coming back in the match and sealed it with a last game of 11-8. Their opponents are two time World Bronze Medalist and carry a lot of experience with them and it was a great victory for our pair who defeated them 13-11,9-11,11-9,8-11,11-8 in the semifinal
In the Final Manika and Sathiyan will be up against a formidable pairing of Lin Yun-ju and Cheng I-ching who won bronze in Tokyo Olympics games to win their nations first Olympic Table Tennis player in 21 years
They have met only once at Singapore Smash wherein it was a clean victory for the Taipei pair. It will be interesting to see what tactics do our pair come up with in the finals in their bid to win the Mixed Doubles crown
Earlier Veteran player Sharath Kamal Achanta got better of an inform player Lim winning the Pre Quarterfinals tie in a commanding fashion 11-6,11-5,6-11,16-14 to mark his entry into the Quarterfinals where he faces Croatian Pucar. They last played at the World Championships 2019 wherein it was a crushing defeat for Sharath.
More to follow…..
