WTT Champions Budapest: G.Sathiyan loses thriller in top-tier table tennis event

Ace Indian paddler Sathiyan Gnanasekaran became the first Indian to feature in WTT's top-tier premier event - the WTT Champions in Budapest and made his debut against World No. 27 Kirill Gerassimenko from Kazakhstan on Monday.

The WTT Champions event only includes players within the Top 32 in the world rankings, making Sathiyan's inclusion in the event a grander one. Sathiyan, being the highest-ranked among Indian paddlers was the only one able to secure an entry for this top-tier table tennis tournament.

In the first-round clash, Sathiyan went up against Kirill Gerassimenko, in a match that went right down to the wire. With some mad rallies and some really crazy shots from both players, the 44-minute encounter was tense on the nerves and saw both Sathiyan and Kirill giving in their all in the fiery encounter that narrowly went in Kirill's favour, as he won 3-2 (8-11, 13-11, 11-7, 7-11, 9-11) to progress in the event.

Sathiyan, currently enjoying a good spell, especially in the lead-up to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, made minimal mistakes and showed his prowess with some creative, mind-boggling returns that left the audience, the commentators and the opponent equally amused and impressed.

READ | Armed with 'deadly combination', G. Sathiyan is hungry for medals at CWG 2022

In the upcoming Commonwealth Games 2022, Sathiyan will be competing in three events - the men's singles, the men's doubles (with Sharath Kamal) and in the mixed doubles (with Manika Batra) and has high hopes of medalling in all.