India goes down fighting to Turkey in World TT

Guangzhou (China), Feb 28 (UNI) Achanta Sharath Kamal's unbeaten run at the World Table Tennis Championship came to an end as the Indian men's team lost 2-3 to Turkey in the second stage of the tournament's division two here today.

India put up a spirited performance as they came back strongly to draw level after losing the first two matches before Shubhajit Saha went down in the decider 4-11, 9-11, 12-10, 7-11 to Jiang Pengfei.

In the first match, Saha was defeated by Irfan Tavukcuoglu 11-9, 4-11, 11-3, 11-4.

Sharath put up a fighting performance in the second match as he went down 8-11, 11-6, 11-8, 10-12, 11-7 to Jiang.

The Indians then staged their comeback as the out-of-form Soumyadeep Roy thrashed Gencay Menge 11- 5, 11-6, 11-8 in straight sets, and Sharath beat Irfan 12-10, 11-5, 11-4.

But Saha went down in the decider as Turkey emerged victorious.

India will now play Nigeria tomorrow for the 33-36 positions.

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