Asian Youth TT C'ships: Suhana Saini's dream run ends in the quarterfinals

Suhana Saini's dream run at the Asian Youth Table Tennis Championships ended in the quarterfinals after she suffered a straight-game defeat to a Chinese paddler in Chongqing, China, on Friday.

She was India's lone representative at the quarterfinal stage of the singles event in this tournament. She had impressed a lot with her temperament, making a few massive comeback wins in the earlier rounds.

Suhana had booked her place in the quarterfinal after upsetting two Chinese players. However, she could not continue this momentum and lost to her third Chinese opponent, Yuxuan Qin, 7-11, 7-11, 3-11, 4-11.

After Suhana's exit, the Indian youth contingent ended the individual competition without any medals.

Earlier, the other two U19 girls, Sayali Wani and Pritha Vartikar, also conceded defeat in their respective round of 16 matches to Chinese and Korean players, respectively.

In the men's U19 singles, Jash Modi and Ankur Bhattacharjee could not make it to the quarterfinals as they lost to China's Sun Yang and Japan's Daito Ono, respectively.

Bronze for U19 men's team

The Indian boys' U19 team ensured that the squad did not return empty-handed from China by winning the first and only medal of the competition for India last week.

Jash Modi, Ankur Bhattacharjee, and Bodhisatwa Chaudhary combined to secure their medal with a close 3-2 victory over Hong Kong in the quarterfinals. They could not improve the color of the medal, losing their semifinal match against South Korea.

Meanwhile, the Indian girls' U19 team missed out on a medal after a narrow 2-3 defeat to Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals.