Mumbai: Sreeja Akula, the India No.1 in singles, suffered one other early exit as she crashed out within the opening spherical of the World Desk Tennis Championships in Doha whereas the nation’s doubles pairs made successful begins on Saturday.
Manush Shah. (HT)
Additionally getting off the blocks in singles have been younger Manush Shah and Diya Chitale with contrasting opening-round victories on the Qatar College.
World No.34 Sreeja took the primary sport however then surrendered to a 4-1 (11-9, 8-11, 6-11, 5-11, 2-11) defeat to Thailand’s Suthasini Sawettabut, ranked 84 within the ITTF charts.
It marks one other disappointing outcome this 12 months for the 26-year-old from Hyderabad, who had displaced Manika Batra as India No.1 final 12 months. Sreeja had a positive 2024 season by which she received a WTT Contender title, made the singles Spherical of 16 on the Paris Olympics and surged to a career-best rating of No.21 after her debut Olympics marketing campaign. Since the previous couple of months, nonetheless, she has struggled for type and peak health.
In doubles, the highest Indian males’s pair of Manav Thakkar and Manush Shah, seeded eighth, had an easy opening victory. They received previous the Slovenian mix of Peter Hribar and Deni Kozul 3-0 (11-7, 11-8, 11-6).
It wasn’t as easy for Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee. The Hangzhou Asian Video games bronze medallists, seeded 14th within the girls’s doubles draw, have been two video games to at least one down however rallied to beat Turkey’s Ozge Yilmaz and Ece Harac 3-2 (4-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-9, 11-7). Diya and Yashaswini Ghorpade, seeded twelfth, defeated the Uzbek pair Markhabo Magdieva and Asel Erkebaeva 3-1 (Sept. 11, 11-2, 11-9, 11-8).
Manush and Diya, who will even characteristic within the blended doubles draw as ninth seeds and can open their marketing campaign on Sunday, got here again to win their respective singles opening rounds.
Manush had a topsy-turvy journey in going previous Portugal’s Tiago Apolonia 4-2 (11-6, 2-11, 11-7, 11-6, 5-11, 11-6), whereas Diya defeated Spain’s Sofia-Xuan Zhang 4-0 (11-4, 11-7, 11-3, 14-12).