World Team TT Championships: Indian women's team defeats Czech Republic 3-0 in Group 5 match
Oct 02, 2022
Chengdu [China], October 2 : The Indian women's table tennis team on Sunday defeated the Czech Republic 3-0 to post its first win in Group 5 after a tough loss to Germany in its first match.
India defeated their opponents by 3-0 in the match. India women will next play Egypt on October 3.
In the first match of the tie, Manika Batra started India's winning campaign as she defeated Hana Matelova by the scoreline of 11-6, 11-6, 11-8, 12-10.
With the win in the first match, India established a 1-0 lead.
The second match of the tie saw young table tennis sensation Sreeja Akula registering a comprehensive win over Marketa Sevcikova 11-5, 11-3, 11-8. The first game of the match was neck-to-neck but Akula with her swift move and smashes sealed out the first game as and moved forward.
In the second match of the tie, Diya Chitale registered a win over Katerina Tomanovska 11-13, 15-13, 12-10, 14-12 in the see-saw match. In the first game, Chitale had to face a defeat by a small margin but the Indian paddler made a quick comeback in the second game and levelled the match by 1-1. In the next two games, the Indian paddler improved her performance and sealed the match by 11-13, 15-13, 12-10, 14-12 scorelines.
Earlier in the day, The Indian men's team continued its winning streak at the ongoing World Team Table Tennis Championships, defeating Germany in their second Group 2 match of the tournament on Sunday.
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran started off for India against Germany's Benedikt Duda. Sathiyan was off to a bad start, losing his first two sets by 11-13, 4-11. However, the highest-ranked Indian TT player kept his nerves and made his way back into the game with wins in two sets by 11-8, 11-4. With things even at 2-2, he secured the closely fought final set by 11-9.
In the next game, India's Harmeet Desai locked horns against Qiu Dang.
Desai lost the first two sets, before bouncing back to win a highly competitive third set. He lost the final set, losing the game by 1-3 (7-11, 9-11, 13-11, 3-11) to Dang.
Manav Thakkar was the next up for India, hoping to turn this deadlock in his nation's favour against Ricardo Walther. Thakkar started fantastically, winning the first set by 13-11, before losing the next one by 6-11. Thakkar kept his calm and finished the next two sets with a win by 11-8, 12-10 to seal the game 3-1.
Gnanasekaran was back in action in a highly crucial fourth game against Dang, who had defeated Desai. Gnanasekaran started off with losses in two sets by 10-12, 7-11. He made a remarkable comeback in the next three sets, winning them by 11-8, 11-8, and 11-9. This whole game was high in intensity and it was Gnanasekaran's speed and strokeplay that prevailed.
With this victory, India won the match by 3-1. The World Team Table Tennis Championships started in China on September 30 and will go on till October 9.