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Manav Thakkar bags U-21 Men's Singles ITTF Challenge title

Manav Thakkar bags U-21 Mens Singles ITTF Challenge title
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By

The Bridge Desk

Published: 9 Dec 2019 11:53 AM GMT

At just 19 years of age, Manav Thakkar has created history as he became the first Indian paddler since 2017 to bag the U-21 men's singles title at the ITTF Challenge Plus Benemax-Virgo North American Open that recently concluded in Markham, Canada. Thakkar put up an impressive performance and rallied past Argentina's Martin Bentancor 11-3, 11-5, 11-6, notching a straight-game victory. 

Thakkar became the first paddler to claim the title at Markham since the ITTF Challenge Series singularly came into being from January 2017. After having disbanded from the ITTF World Tour, the ITTF Challenge Series now exists as a separate tour itself. 

https://twitter.com/TheBridge_IN/status/1203930886246260736

Thakkar was ruthless and gave a dominant performance against Bentancor in the finals of the ITTF Challenge Plus Benemax-Virgo North American Open. Bentancor could not cause any harm to the rising star from India as he exhibited a calm and confident self. The boy from Surat will now join Harmeet Desai, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Soumyajit Ghosh in the list of Indians who have won the ITTF World Tour U-21 men's singles titles. While Harmeet and Sathiyan had bagged the elusive title in 2012 in Brazil and Egypt, respectively, it was Ghosh who laid his claim to the title in 2011 at the tournament in Chile.  

The second-seeded Thakkar, who was a part of the bronze-medal winning Indian men's team at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, was equally impressive in the quarter and semi-final clashes. The young paddler handed Argentina's Horacio Cifuentes a straight-game defeat 11-5, 11-9, 11-5 and Lorenzo Santiago also suffered a similar fate in the hands of Thakkar in the semi-finals of the tournament. Santiago was shown the door by the eventual Markham Open winner 11-7, 12-10, 7-11, 11-6. With this feather in his cap, Thakker has now stepped into the big league and has an exciting future to look forward to. 

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