Table Tennis: Sharath Kamal-Sathiyan bag bronze in Belgium Open

De Haan (Belgium), November 4: India's premier table tennis pair, Sharath Kamal Achanta and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, garnered a bronze medal at the prestigious 2017 Challenge Belgium Open here on Friday (November 3).

They lost in the semifinals to the second-seeded duo from Germany, Patrick Franziska and Ricardo Walther, 3-2 to settle for a bronze.

Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan lost the first game 7-11. But they came back strongly to win the next two games 11-7 11-5. They, however, couldn't maintain the momentum and lost the next two 5-11 5-11 to miss a golden opportunity to make the final.

India's Sanil Shetty too had a good run in the tournament, beating higher-ranked players and going all the way to the quarterfinals.

He beat seventh-seeded Cedric Nuytinck of Belgium 4-3 (11-8 7-11 12-10 11-5 2-11 5-11 11-9) and ninth-seeded Cheng-Ting Liao of Taipei 4-1 (8-11 11-9 12-10 11-7 11-7). Both Cedric and Cheng-Ting are much higher-ranked players too - World No 70 and 72 to his own 180. He couldn't, however, unravel Germany's Ricardo Walther and missed out on a well deserved medal. He lost 1-4 (7-11 3-11 11-5 7-11 6-11).

The country's women's doubles pair of Manika Batra and Mouma Das too did well to make the quarters. They overcame the Taipei pair of Yu-Wen Huang and Yu-Jhun Li 3-2 (11-5 9-11 11-9 10-12 11-4) but went down to another Taipei pair, Hsien-Tzu Cheng and Hsing-Yin Liu 1-3 (6-11 11-5 9-11 10-12) in a closely fought encounter.

Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan showed their class on their way to the semis, first beating the Belgian team of Thibaut Darcis and Lauric Jean 3-0 (11-7 11-6 11-7) and then getting the better of Sweden's Harald Andersson and Simon Arvidsson by the same margin (11-8 11-8 11-6).

Source: Agencies