Asian Cup TT: Sreeja Akula starts with a win. Sharath and Manav beaten

The Indian paddlers had a tough outing on the opening day of the ATTU-ITTF Asian Cup in Shenzhen, China, as only one of the six paddlers was able to register a win in their respective matches on Wednesday.

Sreeja Akula started the day for India on a positive note as she claimed a straight game 3-0 (11-7, 11-5, 11-4) victory in her opening women's singles group match against Qatar's Aia Mohamed.

The young Indian completely dominated the match and Aia had no answers to Sreeja's aggressive play and only managed 16 points from the match. 

However, Sreeja's next challenge will be a tough test as she will face the world No. 1 Sun Yingsha of China in the second group match tomorrow.

The other two players in the women's singles category, Ayhika Mukherjee and Yashaswini Ghodpade, had a dreadful start to the campaign, losing in straight games to their respective opponents.

Tough day for the men

Meanwhile, India did not experience a single victory in the men's singles department as all three paddlers, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Manav Thakkar, and Harmeet Desai, faced defeats in their respective matches.

Sharath, facing world no.3 Jiangkun Liang of China, managed just 16 points from the whole match, conceding it in straight games (4-11, 4-11, 8-11) in just 21 minutes.

On the other hand, Harmeet and Manav showed some fighting spirit before going down to South Korea's An Jaehyn (1-3) and Chinese Taipei's Lin Yun-ju (0-3) respectively.