Women go men’s way as India exit Asian Table Tennis Team Championships | More sports News
After the Indian men’s team were knocked out of the Asian Table Tennis Team Championships in Bhubaneswar on Sunday, one was hopeful that the women’s team would at least win their quarterfinal tie and make it to the medal round.However, it wasn’t to be as the women’s team, led by Manika Batra, went down to Singapore 2-3 in the last-eight stage at Kalinga Stadium Indoor Athletics Centre on Monday evening. Having won a bronze medal in the last edition and being the higher-ranked team, this was quite an upset for the Indian team that had trained in China ahead of the tournament.India coach Massimo Costantini had spoken about the difficulty of playing under pressure ahead of the tournament when he said, “Things are going to be good when you don’t have any pressure. But when points are at stake, the thought process is like what if I make a mistake? And then in that moment you get conservative, you are afraid and you play defensive and then this will never pay off.”This seemed to be the case with the Indian women on Monday as they were knocked out of the event and will have to be content without a medal.Earlier, it didn’t start well for the hosts as Batra lost the first tie 1-3 against Zhao Yun Tan without a fight. With Sreeja Akula out with injury, a lot depended on Batra, but the senior-most player of the side couldn’t live up to the expectations and lost 8-11, 7-11, 11-6, 8-11.Diya Chitale was next up against Jian Zeng but despite her brilliant attacking game, Chitale couldn’t get the better of the experienced Zeng and lost 11-3, 10-12, 9-11, 11-5, 9-11.With India down 0-2, it was left to Yashaswini Ghorpade to pull things back for the hosts and she didn’t disappoint. Playing against Lin Qian Ser, Ghorpade grabbed a 3-0 win in less than 22 minutes. The player from Karnataka wasn’t troubled at all as she won a total of 33 points and gave India a lease of life.With the crowd finally getting their voice back, Batra won the fourth tie to help India make it 2-2. Playing with much more confidence and vigour, she beat Zeng 11-9, 8-11, 11-8, 12-10.With all to play for in the final tie, the stage was set for the young Chitale to take India home, but she just couldn’t break down Tan’s defensive play. Every smash that Chitale fired towards her, Tan played it back and won 11-6, 11-5, 11-4.Meanwhile, the top-seeded Chinese women made short work of Thailand, winning 3-0 in less than an hour.Results: Men: China bt Iran 3-1, Chinese Taipei bt DPR Korea 3-2; Women: Singapore bt India 3-2, China bt Thailand 3-0
