Sathiyan Gnanasekaran in action during his men’s singles group stage match against South Korea’s Lim Jong-hoon.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
The Indian men’s team suffered its second successive defeat, losing to third seed Korea 0-3 in a Group 3 match of the World Table Tennis Team Championships in Busan on February 19.
On the other hand, the Indian women’s team blanked Uzbekistan 3-0 in a Group-1 contest for its second straight victory.
Veteran Sharath Kamal, reigning national champion Harmeet Desai and G. Sathiyan lost their respective singles to go down meekly in their third group stage tie against third seeds Korea.
Harmeet, who is India’s top-ranked player at 67, went down to world number 14 Jang Woojin 4-11, 10-12, 8-11.
Sathiyan was then brushed aside by world number 16 Lim Jonghoon 5-11, 7-11, 7-11 with India trailing 0-2.
Sharath managed to put up a fight, taking the second game but couldn’t capitalise on the momentum losing 9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 5-11 to Lee San Su and conceding the tie.
After winning its opening tie against Chile, the Indian team lost 1-3 to Poland. But despite the two losses, India lie in the second spot in Group 3 behind Korea.
The results:
Men: Group 3: Korea bt India 3-0 (Jang Woojin bt Harmeet Desai 11-4, 11-7, 11-7; Lim Jonghoon bt G. Sathiyan 11-5, 11-7, 11-7; Lee Sang Su bt Sharath Kamal 11-9, 8-11, 11-6, 11-5).
Women: Group 1: India bt Uzbekistan 3-0 (Archana Kamath bt Rimma Gufranova 11-7, 11-3, 11-6; Manika Batra bt Markhabo Magdieva 11-7, 11-4, 11-1; Diya Chitale bt Rozalina Khadjiev 11-6, 10-12, 11-6, 11-4).
(With PTI inputs)
