2019 Asian Table Tennis Championships: All you need to know, Preview & Prediction, When & where to watch

All eyes will turn to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, this weekend as the 2019 Asian Table Tennis Championships kicks off from Sunday. The Indian men's contingent will be spearheaded by the likes of Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Achanta Sharath Kamal while the dynamic Manika Batra will shoulder responsibilities in the women's category. The tournament also serves as an Olympic qualifier competition with quota places up for grabs in each category.

Schedule

The tournament in Indonesia will have participants plying their trade in seven different categories — men's team, women's team, men's doubles, women's doubles, men's singles,women's singles and mixed doubles

The team events will be conducted first from Sunday (September 15). Participating nations will be divided into eight groups for the women's team and nine groups for the men's team events. The finals for the women's team event will be played on September 17 while the men's team final will be held the next day.

On September 18, the women's singles games are slated to begin with 64 participants taking to the court for the first round of the knockout games, alongside the men's doubles' first rounds.

The men's singles, on the other hand, are scheduled to be played the following day, coinciding with the women's doubles. The finals for these two categories will be played on September 22, while the women's singles and men's doubles finals will be played a day prior.

Prediction

Harmeet Desai, who helped India to men's team gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, will have his winning compatriots Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Sharath Kamal Achanta and Amalraj Anthony by his side as they seek to do an encore of their last year's success. Newcomer Manav Vikash Thakkar has finally graduated to the senior's party after winning his fourth career ITTF World Junior Circuit Boys' Singles title in November 2018.

India last won a medal in the Asian Championships in 1976 when the MD pair of Vilas Menon and Manjit Singh Dua brought home the bronze. After a wait of 43 years, the Indian contingent will once again be seeking the elusive Asian medal. Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra, the Asian Games bronze medallist pair teams up for Mixed Doubles, India will have a strong chance to garner a podium finish.

On the other hand, in the women's team, India's fan favourite, Manika Batra, will lead the country's efforts in conjunction with her 2018 Commonwealth Games women's doubles gold medal-winning teammate in Madhurika Patkar. Archana Girish Kamath, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee complete the roster.

Squad

Men's: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, Anthony Amalraj, Manav Thakkar

Women's: Manika Batra, Madhurika Patkar, Ayhika Mukherjee, Archana Kamath, Sutirtha Mukherjee

Draw

The draw will take place on September 14 at 2pm IST.

Telecast

The entire tournament will be streamed on the ITTF website, in the itTV section. Each day, the games are scheduled to start at 8:30am IST and can be expected to go on late into the evening. Matches of all tables can be streamed through itTV. Users will, however, have to create a free account by giving their email credentials and setting up a password to be able to access itTV.

Apart from this, the matches of the main table will be made available on YouTube on the official ITTF channel as well.

Live link: https://tv.ittf.com/