Table Tennis
WTT Budapest: Sathiyan/Manika lose to World No. 4 duo of Harimoto/Hayata in semi-finals
World No. 6 mixed doubles duo of Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra suffered defeat in the semi-finals of the ongoing WTT Budapest.
Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (Source: ITTF)
India's challenge at the ongoing WTT Budapest ended as the World No. 6 mixed doubles pair of Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra lost in the semi-finals.
The duo of Sathiya and Manika lost to the World No. 4 Japanese pair of Tomokazu Harimoto and Hina Hayata in straight sets (11-9, 11-9, 11-7) to end the Indian campaign at WTT Star Contender Budapest, which is a part of the European Summer Series 2022.
The CWG-bound pair fought hard till the last point but were outplayed by a superior pair of Harimoto and Hayata.
The Indian duo will look at the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Birmingham where they are touted as the medal hopes for India.
Before this, all campaigns came to end after Sathiyan Gnanasekaran lost to World No. 9 Dimitrij Ovtcharov in straight games 3-0 (5-11, 10-12, 8-11) and veteran Sharath Kamal also lost to the reigning European Cup champion and World No. 8 Darko Jorgic 3-0 (11-6, 11-7, 12-10) and the World No. 4 duo of Manika Batra and Archana Kamath also couldn't progress and lost 3-1(11-6, 6-11, 11-9, 11-5) to World No. 33 Taiwanese duo of Cheng Hsien-Tzu and Liu Hsing-Yin.
