WTT Star Contender: Gnanasekaran crashes out, Manika Batra advances to Round of 32
Apr 26, 2023
Bangkok [Thailand], April 26 : Ace Indian paddler Sathiyan Gnanasekaran crashed out of the ongoing WTT Star Contender 2023 event being held in Bangkok after a loss in the round of 32 match.
Gnanasekaran lost to China's Liang Jingkun 0-3 (7-11, 7-11, 8-11).
Payas Jain and Manav Thakkar, however, could not progress beyond the qualification round.
Payas bowed out of the competition in the qualification round three after a 0-3 loss to Japan's Satoshi Aida (5-11, 5-11, 13-11). He had earlier notched a 3-2 win over Alberto Mino of Ecuador (11-8, 11-7, 5-11, 8-11, 11-8) and Rares Sipos of Romania by a walkover in earlier qualification rounds.
In the women's singles competition, Manika Batra advanced to the round of 32 by defeating Suh Hyowon of South Korea 3-0 (11-3, 11-6, 12-10).
Sutirtha Mukherjee, Archana Girish Kamath, Yashaswini Ghorpade, Sreeja Akula, Diya Parag, Ayhika Mukherjee suffered faced defeat in the competition.
Sutirtha crashed out of the competition after 1-3 loss to Korea's Lee Zion (6-11, 11-6, 8-11, 9-11). She had wins over Singapore's Wong Xin Ru, China's Wu Yangchen and Supamas Pankhaoyo of Thailand in qualification rounds.
Archana crashed out of tournament in the qualification round two after 1-3 loss to Taiwan's Li Yu-Jhun (12-10, 9-11, 11-4, 11-4).
Sreeja also failed to impress, losing her qualification round 2 match to Taiwan's Huang Yu-Wen 1-3 (12-14, 11-3, 8-11, 9-11) after a 3-0 win over Charlotte Carey of Wales in the qualification round one match (11-8, 11-7, 11-6).
Yashaswini also was eliminated from the tournament after a loss to Thailand's Wonglakhon Phatsaraphon in her qualification round two match.
Diya Parag and Ayhika Mukherjee crashed out from the tournament in the qualification round one itself.
In the mixed doubles competition, the duo of Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra lost 2-3 (11-6, 9-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-6) to Shunsuke Togami and Miwa Harimoto in the quarterfinal. They had reached quarters after a win over Thailand's Padasak Tanviriyavechakul and Tamolwan Khetkhuan by 3-1 (5-11, 12-10, 5-11, 9-11) in their round of 16 match.
The mixed doubles duo of Manav Thakkar and Archana Girish Kamath crashed out in the qualification round two after 2-3 (11-5, 10-12, 12-10, 7-11, 5-11) loss to British duo of Tin-Tin Ho and Samuel Walker .
The WTT Star Contender started on April 23 and will go on till April 29.
