New Delhi: Indians had mixed fortunes on the opening day of the main draw at the ITTF World Tour India Open at Thyagraj Stadium here on Thursday.
The casualty of the day was Delhi girl Manika Batra, highest seeded among the Indians, who lost 1-4 (7-11, 11-8, 7-11, 7-11, 7-11) in the opening round to unseeded compatriot Mousumi Paul.
Tenth seed Batra started on a strong note but soon fizzled against the calm and composed Paul.
The aggressive Delhi girl was drawn into long rallies and caught on the wrong foot repeatedly as she lost the first game 7-11. The next saw Manika up the ante to level scores, pocketing the game at 11-8, but that was all she could manage on the day.
Mousumi relied on strong returns to take the lead in the third game. She continued in the same vein in the next two games to ease into the pre-quarter-finals.
In the other women’s first round match, local girl Krritwika Roy gave a tough fight to Jianh Huanjun of Hong Kong before going down 3-4 (6-11, 11-6, 7-11, 11-13, 11-8, 11-8, 17-19) while Madhurika Patkar after winning the first game surrendered to Hong Kong’s Soo Wai Yam Mimmie 1-4.
In another all-Indian encounter, Sutirtha Mukherjee breezed past 16th seed Ankita Das in straight games.
Harmeet, Sharath advance
In the men’s first round, Achantha Sharath Kamal and Harmeet Desai entered the second round with contrasting wins.
Desai who came through the qualifiers, edged past 77th-ranked Tristan Flore of France 4-11, 6-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-7, 11-7 while Sharath had it easy against France’s Can Azzuku. The national champion won 11-5, 11-8, 11-4, 8-11, 11-9 in just 20 minutes.
Surat boy Desai, who shone a couple a years ago both nationally and internationally at the junior level, showed that lost spark on the day. Despite losing the first three games, he bounced back by winning four consecutive games to finish on top. “After the third game he start attacking and it rattled me but I threw my all into the match. Its a great thing for me,” Harmeet said after the match.
Former national champion Anthony Amalraj, silver medallist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the doubles with Sharath, failed to go past fourth seeded Japanese Koki Niwa, losing in straight sets. Second seed and world no. 8 Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus lost to Japan’s Asuka Sakai, the U-21 champion at the event on Wednesday, 4-0.
