Star paddler G Sathiyan emerges victorious in both singles games as country’s TT men players script 3-1 win over second seeded Germans in group stage
Team India after their win v Germany. Pic/World Table Tennis Twitter
Star paddler G Sathiyan won both his singles, including the one against World No.9 Dang Qiu, to script India’s stunning 3-1 win over second seeds Germany in the group stage of the World Table Tennis Championships here on Sunday.
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World No.37 Sathiyan won two gruelling deciders, first against 36th ranked Duda Benedikt (11-13, 4-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-9) before edging out Germany’s highest-ranked player Qiu (10-12, 7-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-9).
In both the matches, Sathiyan staged a strong fightback after losing the first two games.
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‘It was tough against Qiu’
“The match against Qiu was definitely much tougher. He is a Top-10 player. It was a high quality match as well,” Sathiyan said.
India No.2 Harmeet Desai had lost the second singles to Qui 1-2 (7-11, 9-11, 13-11, 3-11) before Manav Thakkar helped his team go 2-1 up with a 3-1 (13-11, 6-11, 11-8, 12-10) win over higher-ranked Ricardo Walther.
The 17th-ranked India had beaten Uzbekistan in their opening group game on Saturday. They need to finish in the top two to advance to the pre-quarterfinals.
In the women’s draw, India recorded their first win of the group stage with a 3-0 result over Czech Republic.
The Manika Batra-led side had lost to Germany on Saturday.
Manika defeats Matelova
Manika defeated Hana Matelova 3-1 (11-6, 11-6, 8-11, 12-10 ) in the first singles before Akula Sreeja and Diya Chitale won their singles against Marketa Sevcikova and Katerina Tomanovska, 3-0 and 3-1 respectively.
It was a close affair between Diya and Katerina before the Indian prevailed 11-13, 15-13, 12-10, 14-12. Down two game points in the fourth game, Diya relied on her serve to make it 10-10 before winning a spectacular rally.
Katerina made it 12-12 before India got the couple of points she needed to complete a fine win.
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