Indian paddlers Manika Batra and Manav Thakkar began their singles campaign on a winning note on Sunday while Ankur Bhattacharjee bowed out in the first round at the Table Tennis World Championships in Doha, Qatar.
Manika won her first-round fixture 4-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-8, 11-2) against Fatima Bello of Nigeria in 23 minutes. The 22nd-seeded Indian will be up against either Singapore’s Tan Zhao Yun or Korea’s Park Gahyeon in the round of 64.
In men’s singles, Manav beat New Zealand’s Timothy Choi 4-1 (11-3, 11-8, 6-11, 11-7, 14-12) while Ankur lost 1-4 (11-4, 7-11, 9-11, 10-12, 8-11) to Hong Kong’s Lam Siu Hang.
India’s mixed doubles campaign, on the other hand, began on a bittersweet note.
While the ninth-seeded pair of Manush Shah and Diya Chitale started with a win in straight games, the 14th-seeded duo of Harmeet Desai and Yashaswini Ghorpade failed to capitalise on a 2-0 lead and also wasted three match points to exit the competition in the opening round.
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Manush and Diya, who won their maiden WTT Contender title in Tunis last this month, had no trouble in beating the Algerian pair of Mehdi Bouloussa and Malissa Nasri 3-0 (11-2, 11-7, 11-6) in 16 minutes. They will next face either the Korean pair of Oh Junsung and Kim Nayeong or the Kiwi duo of Dean Shu and Jocelyn Lam.
Facing the unseeded French pair of Thibault Poret and Leana Hochart, Harmeet and Yashaswini bagged the first two games 11-8 and 11-6. The Indians had a 9-6 lead in the third game but Poret and Hochart managed to fight back, winning six of the next seven points.
The French duo won the fourth game 11-8 to take the match to a decider.
Harmeet and Yashaswini were in control, leading 6-2, and had three match points at 10-7 before allowing their opponents to make another comeback.
Harmeet also suffered defeat in his men’s doubles opener. Pairing up with G. Sathiyan, the Indian lost 3-1 (11-9, 10-12, 16-14, 12-10) to the Austrian-Moldovan duo of Maciej Kolodziejczyk and Vladislav Ursu.
Sathiyan lost to Thibault Poret of France in men’s singles round of 128 0-4 (5-11, 6-11, 7-11, 6-11).
Later in the day, Yashaswini will begin her campaign in singles.