Busan (South Korea): Indian women's team eased past Uzbekistan by 3-0 while the Indian men’s team faced the 3-0 defeat against hosts South Korea as the visitors suffered their second consecutive defeat of the ongoing World Table Tennis Team Championships here on Monday.
The 155th ranked Ayhika Mukherjee and the 49th ranked Sreeja Akula were rested from the rubber, providing an opportunity to Archana Kamath and Diya Chitale. However, they both won their respective singles while seasoned Manika Batra secured an easy win against her opponent to make it a 3-0 win for India.
Archana defeated Rimma Gufranov 11-7, 11-3, 11-6, while Manika stormed past Markhabo Magdieva 11-7, 11-4, 11-1. Diya, on the other hand, prevailed over Rozalina Khadjieva 11-6, 10-12, 11-4, 11-6. Having started off their campaign with a 2-3 loss to China, Indian women's team now have secured two wins on the trot to occupy second spot in the Group 1 standings. They will next face Spain in their final league match of Group 1 on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, veteran Sharath Kamal Achanta, 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, India's top-ranked player at 67, lost against Jang Woojin, world number 14, in three consecutive sets by 4-11, 10-12, 8-11 in the first tie match.
Sathiyan, 104 ranked, was then brushed aside by world number 16 Lim Jonghoon 5-11, 7-11, 7-11 with India trailing 0-2. After losing the first set, Sharath managed to bounce back in the game, winning the second set, but couldn't capitalise on the momentum losing 9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 5-11 to Lee San Su and conceding the tie. The Indian contingent have not been quite impressive since their 1-3 win over the formidable Chile side in the tournament opener, losing two of their three encounters so far. However, India are placed second in Group 3 only behind Korea.
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