Indian campaign ends in World TT Championship

Zagreb, Croatia, May 24 (UNI) Indian campaign ended on a disastrous note with none of top paddlers advancing beyond first round in singles competitions in Liebherr World Table Tennis Championship here.

Achanta Sharath Kamal, Soumyadeep Roy and Subhajit Saha among men and Mouma Das, Poulomi Ghatak among women all lost their opening round matches.

Only the doubles duo of Sharath and Soumyadeep advanced into the second round where they were outclassed by Aleksandar Karakasevic and Slobodan Grujic of Serbia 10-12, 5-11, 6-11, 3-11.

The Indian pair had earlier beaten Stefan Fegerl and Werner Schlager of Austria 11-4, 6-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-7, 11-9 in the opening round.

In men's singles, Sharath Kamal bite the dust against Lucjan Blaszczyk of Poland 8-11, 6-11, 9-11, 9-11 while Soumyadeep lost to Christophe Legout of France 9-11, 3-11, 6-11, 12-10, 5-11.

However, Subhajit fought a grim battle against Min Yang of Italy before going down 8-11, 2-11, 12-10, 11-8, 8-11, 11-9, 7-11 in a seven-set thriller.

In women's singles, Mouma and Poulomi were no match for their opponents. While Mouma was thrashed by Irian Kotikhina of Russia 8-11, 4-11, 4-11, 7-11, Poulomi got the drubbing at the hands of Lee Eun Hee of Korea 3-11, 4-11, 5-11, 9-11.

Mouma and Poulomi also lost their doubles first round match to Spanish duo of Galia Dvorak and Sara Ramirez 6-11, 5-11, 9-11, 6-11.

Even no Indian went past the first round hurdle in mixed doubles also. Sharath and Poulomi lost 9-11, 13-11, 5-11, 6-11 to the Chinese pair of Xin Xu and Yan Guo, while Anirban Nandi and Kasturi Chakraborty succumbed to Bernhard Presslmayer and Li Qiangbing of Austria 3-11, 9-11, 4-11, 11-9, 8-11.

The duo of Soumyadeep and Mouma got the thrashing at the hands of Chiang Peng-Lung and Lu Yun-Feng of Chinese Taipei 4-11, 8-11, 8-11, 8-11, while Subhajit Saha and Shamini Kumaresan went down to Australian pair of William Henzell and Miao Miao 8-11, 12-10, 11-13, 10-12, 11-13 in the other mixed doubles opening round games.

UNI