Table Tennis
Table Tennis: Sathiyan Gnanasekaran qualifies for Tokyo Olympics
Indian paddler Sathiyan Gnanasekaran qualifies for Tokyo Olympics after beating Pakistan's Muhammad Rameez.
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran qualifies for Tokyo Olympics
Indian ace paddler Sathiyan Gnanasekaran qualified for Tokyo Olympics after he beat Pakistan's Muhammad Rameez 4-0 (11-5, 11-8, 11-9, 11-2) in the Asian Olympic Qualification tournament being held at Doha.
Sathiyan had started his round-robin draw in the AOQT with 4-3 win against fellow Indian compatriot Sharath Kamal in the morning today. With two victories, he earned the Tokyo Olympics berth from South Asia zone.
Earlier, India's second-highest-ranked female table tennis player Sutirtha Mukherjee qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, after her 4-2 (7-11, 11-7, 11-4, 4-11, 11-5, 11-4) win against her Indian compatriot top-ranked Manika Batra.
Despite her defeat against Sutirtha, the Khel-Ratna Awardee Manika Batra will still have a good chance of qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics because of her ranking.
Sharath Kamal, India's highest-ranked table tennis player Achanta Sharath Kamal qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, after his 4-0 (11-4, 11-1, 11-5, 11-4) straight-games win against Pakistan's Rameez Muhammad
Even though Sharath lost a hard-fought first match 3-4 against fellow Indian Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, his win against the Pakistani Rameez has made sure that he has a safe passage to Tokyo due to his higher World Ranking.
This would be the fourth straight Olympic appearance for Sharath who has been competing at the quadrennial event since the 2004 Athens Games.
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, on the other hand, will qualify for Tokyo if he beats Rameez Muhammad in his upcoming match on the basis of topping the South Asian pool at the Asian Olympic Qualification.
