The Indian men’s and women’s table tennis teams began their Asian Games campaigns on rousing notes on Friday.
The men’s team first registered a facile 3-0 victory over Yemen in their opening Preliminary Group F match, before returning in the second session to outplay Singapore 3-1.
The women’s team had to fight it out with Singapore in their Group F game before winning 3-2.
Veteran Sharath Kamal, G. Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai made short work of their Yemenese opponents to notch similar straight-game victories.
Against Singapore, the challenge wasn’t as easy. Sathiyan overcame Izaac Quek Yong 3-1. Harmeet was given a tough time by Pang Yew En Koen, but the Indian prevailed 3-2 (12-10, 11-8, 6-11, 6-11, 11-5).
The 41-year-old Sharath, however, was overpowered by Clarence Chew. Chew won 3-1 (13-11, 11-8, 10-12, 11-5).
But Sathiyan returned to win his match against Koen 3-1 to give India victory.
In the women’s competition, Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula won their first matches, but Ayhika Mukherjee lost against Jian Zeng. Zeng then defeated Manika 3-2 to make it 2-2 for Singapore.
In the the decider, Ayhika fought past Jingyi Zhou 3-1 to ensure the women began their journey on winning note.
Balraj advances
Indian rower Balraj Panwar, in a picture shared on X, has qualified for the medal race in men’s single sculls. Twitter
Indian rower Balraj Panwar qualified for Final A of the men’s single sculls.
The 24-year-old Panwar finished third with a timing of 7:22:22 in the semi-final F A/B2 to make the cut for the medal race.
With inputs from PTI
