India's Payas Jain bags team gold for Asia in World Cadet Challenge

Indian table tennis sensation Payas Jain teamed up with South Korea’s Seongil Jang and Sora Matsushima of Japan to win the gold medal at the ITTF World Cadet Challenge which is being held in Wladyslawowo, Poland on Monday.

South Korean Seongil Jang kicked things off for Team Asia as he beat Singapore national Yong Izaac Quek with the scoreline reading 3-1. It was followed up with another impressive performance from Japanese Sora Matsushima against Lulian Chirita of Romania which resulted in an identical scoreline victory for Team Asia.

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Coasting comfortably with a 2-0 lead, it was down to Payas to hammer the final nail in the coffin, and he delivered duly. The Indian won 3-1 over Daniel Berzosa of Spain as Team Asia defended the crown successfully.

Earlier, Team Asia won with a comfortable margin of 3-0 over Team Europe which consisted of Darius Movileanu of Romania, Louis Laffinuer of Belgium and Simon Belik of the Czech Republic.

Meanwhile, in the girl’s team event, Team Asia was led by Yashaswani Ghorpade as they won the bronze medal with a 3-0 victory over Poland.

Previously, Payas had won the silver medal at the 25th Asian Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Championships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, after losing to top-seed and World No. 1 Yuanyu Chen of China.